


Shot Clock

by legcabbage



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Basketball, Crack, F/F, Fluff, Maybe there's angst, Mutual Pining, Side Ships, Slow Burn, They're in college so obviously, Underage Drinking, Volleyball
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24547303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legcabbage/pseuds/legcabbage
Summary: After failing her recent test, Hyejoo is banned from participating in any basketball practices and instead has to help out the volleyball team until she can raise her grades up in time for nationals. But failing grades isn't the only problem here.For example, getting hit in the face by a volleyball by the best spiker in the entire school.orHyejoo sucks at chemistry and also gets fucking vibed check by a small blonde girl from the volleyball team.
Relationships: Choi Yerim | Choerry/Im Yeojin, Ha Sooyoung | Yves/Kim Jiwoo | Chuu, Jeon Heejin/Kim Hyunjin, Jo Haseul/Viian Wong | ViVi, Jung Jinsol | Jinsoul/Kim Jungeun | Kim Lip, Park Chaewon | Go Won/Son Hyejoo | Olivia Hye
Comments: 161
Kudos: 655





	1. Ch. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hyejoo gets her test score back and maybe she realizes she's fucking stupid than she thought.

Hyejoo holds the piece of paper firmly in her right hand, the other holding the handle of her duffle bag. She presses her lips together into a tight line and looks at the red markings that cover most of the page; a never ending repetition of just red x’s and continuing onto the back of.

She lets out a sigh, bringing her eyes to the big red number circled in the corner of the page next to her name.

24.

It’s like it was taunting her, staring her straight in the face and belittling her.  _ You’re fucking stupid.  _ Is what it would say and it wouldn’t be entirely wrong. Academics weren’t entirely her thing which proves to be true as she made a 24 on her chemistry test.  _ Fuck chemistry _ . She thought. What makes it humiliating is that she made the lowest test grade in the class. 

In all honesty, Hyejoo knew she wasn’t going to  _ ace  _ her chemistry test. She’s no scientist. She’s a computer engineer major. She didn’t need to figure out the amount of atoms in Xenon to build computers. But to fail as badly as she did? Especially in a non-majors science class? She thought she would get at least a 70. 

But of course her professor was the personification of evil and pulled a dick move on the entire class. And for what? 

_ “Take out your pens, everyone!” Their chemistry professor called out, a little too happy to be considered normal. Hyejoo could hear a bit of mischief in his voice and figured a storm was brewing.  _

_ “Pens? Don’t we usually use pencils? Pens don't process on the scantron, sir.” One of her classmates questioned, a raised hand in the air.  _

_ The professor smiled at their confused faces. Hyejoo could tell it was more of a shit-eating grin. “Ohohoho! Correct! But we’re not using scantrons for today's exam because you’ll be writing directly on the test!”. A chorus of huh’s, what’s, and “are you fucking serious” erupted through the class.  _

_ Their professor began passing out the test while speaking, “Oops, did I forget to mention that last class? My bad,” He chuckled and Hyejoo wanted nothing to do but punch the living shit out of their devil reincarnate of a professor as she stared at the paper with several lines after each question. There were no A, B, C, D options.  _

_ “No multiple choice. Answers must be written down. Good luck!”  _

Hyejoo frowned. That was a dick move from their usually chill professor and to be betrayed by him was unforgivable. She just hopes the news doesn’t reach her coach’s email inbox because now her already terrible grade average in that class dropped in huge numbers. She’s most likely failing at this point. 

Glancing at the time on her wristwatch, she figured she could stop by the vending machines before heading to practice to get her mind off her poor exam score. 

She began walking until she heard an all too familiar loud voice and a couple of footsteps approaching. Turning around to look behind her and sees two figures wearing the same athletic jacket approaching her. Hyejoo lets out a groan as one of the bodies ran up to her, knocking the air out of her, and put her into a headlock

“What’s up, baby wolf.” The voice that belongs to the center of their team said as she ruffled the girl's hair with her free hand. 

Hyejoo grunted as she tried to escape from her grip. She chokes out, “Let go of me, Sooyoung.” She struggled but her efforts fell flat considering Sooyoung is much taller and has the upper hand in this situation. Not only that but she was strong. Hyejoo swears this girl eats rocks and carries boulders in her freetime because how the fuck can Sooyoungs bicep be this solid? As much as the other girls in the school swoon about “wanting Sooyoung-sunbaenim to crush them with her muscles”, Hyejoo is not one of those girls. She wants out. Hyejoo lets out a strangled choke as Sooyoung tightens her hold. 

“Hey hey hey, we don’t want our star player to die before nationals come up.” Hyejoo looks up to see her best friend and childhood friend, Hyunjin, talking followed by a laugh as she nudges Sooyoung off with her elbow. 

Sooyoung snorts before finally letting go of Hyejoo, picking up her duffle bag that she dropped before torturing the younger girl and slinging it over her shoulder. Hyejoo sighs in relief. One more second of that torture and she would’ve collapsed from lack of air.

“Pfft, with the recent score she got on that chemistry exam? I doubt Coach would even let her on the court.” Sooyoung crossed her arms, glancing at the paper in Hyejoo’s right hand. 

Hyunjin raised an eyebrow and grabbed the paper, ignoring Hyejoo’s protest to give it back. She widens her eyes and clicks her tongue. “Damn I knew you were always terrible in chemistry and science in general but holy shit… How’d you fail  _ this  _ badly?” 

“Hey it’s Kobe’s number though. Rest in peace. Mamba Forever.” Sooyoung pipes in and closes her eyes to grieve a little more over her idol, hitting her chest with a fist and pointing up to the sky. Hyejoo squints her eyes at her. Is she actually about to cry again? Sooyoung could be a little dramatic at times. 

Hyejoo facepalms and groans. How many times has she groaned since she received her test back? She lost count. Doesn’t make it any better when her friends keep shoving it in her face and the inevitable that’s about to come once they get to the gym. 

She snatches the paper back from Hyunjin and shoves it into one of the pockets in her duffle bag and throws the bag over her shoulder, her hand gripping the handle.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Hyejoo grumbles and begins walking. She just wants to be on the court right now shooting away her problems. The other two followed next to her. 

“Wonder how Coach is going to react. You know how she is about making sure all of us pass our class.” Hyunjin says, throwing her arms behind her head. 

“Remember that one time Yujin failed three math exams in a row and failed two other classes and Coach literally made her do sit ups?” Sooyoung said. 

“Okay well it wasn’t that bad--” 

“Her legs were dangling from the pole, Hyunjin. She was upside down for fucks sake. Don’t get me started on Yena.” 

Both Hyunjin and Hyejoo visibly shivered at the memory. Their Coach is pretty fucking scary when it comes to making sure the team doesn’t forget about academics. She was brutal and had zero tolerance for any of the basketball players failing a class. 

Hyejoo swallowed the lump in her throat. Basketball was everything to the raven hair girl. It's partially the reason why she got into this college along with Hyunjin as they were both riding on an athletic scholarship. 

She just hopes their Coach goes easy on her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> henlo it's me again ;D i hope you enjoyed this very short chapter because actually this fic is pretty lengthy and long (i currently have 24k+ words ready.) 
> 
> so i actually started writing this story since March during my spring break when quarantine started happening. i was planning on dropping this fic once i finished the entire story but i lost motivation and never did so my plan is: if i post what i have already, that'll push me to complete this story!  
> so here we are! i'll be posting chapters irregularly
> 
> (fun fact: im actually a basketball player but not for school, so like i just liked the idea of hyejoo being a bball player and also gowon being a spiker despite being tiny... i think that's pretty powerful and sexc. so this is how this fic came to life LOL ) 
> 
> don't be a silent reader ;D comments actually helps pushes me to get stuff done.  
> Also for those who read my other hyewon fic 'By My Side', i'm currently working on the 2jin sequel so look forward to that!
> 
> twitter: @httphyewonz  
> art acc on ig: @ga.leigh.ry (shameless promo teehee)  
> cc: https://curiouscat.me/sojungslines


	2. Ch. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hyejoo ends up in the coaches office and she might just cry inside a little. At least she has her (not very good) emotional support friends.

Fuck she was wrong. She was so, so wrong. 

Because right now here she is inside the Coach’s office, standing in front of her not-so-pleased head coach, Jung Eunji, who’s piercing eyes were glaring daggers at her. 

Hyejoo feels her palms sweaty and hangs her head low, too nervous to look into her eyes. Usually she never felt this tense around the coach since she tends to be on her good side. But not anymore it seems. 

Before all this though, Hyejoo knew she was in deep trouble when she stepped out of the locker rooms, wearing her practice jersey, and onto the court to see her other friend and the small forward, Jungeun, who paused her lay up practice to give the younger girl a worried look and a brief glance at the office room. 

_Hyejoo grabbed a basketball off the racks and began her daily dribbling drills she does before shooting._

_She was walking down the side of the court, bouncing the ball between her legs on every step. She does this so often, she doesn’t have to think twice as her body moves on its own._

_Hyejoo watches her other teammates practice and their small scrimmage game. She even sees Yerim, her other best friend and childhood friend, pull some dribbling moves that gets Hyunjin, who was defending her, confused before she’s able to process that Yerim already released the ball and bounce pass the ball towards the paint where Sooyoung runs into the open spot, catching the ball, and finishes with a reverse lay up._

_Even when the three of them grew up playing basketball together, Yerim always loved to mess with Hyunjin and try to break her ankles. Yerim moves a lot quicker compared to Hyunjin and she uses it to her advantage and her ability to know where her teammates are. It’s like she has eyes everywhere._

_Hyejoo briefly hears a “Oh come on! Chaeyeon, guard your person!” from Hyunjin and a “Nice no-look pass, Yerim!” from Sooyoung who high-fives the said girl who was running backward and stuck out her tongue at Hyunjin. Hyunjin huffed before dribbling the ball to the other side._

_As they continued moving to the other half of the court, Hyejoo went to the vacant half and dribbled up to the three point line. She stopped just before the line and bends her knees before jumping and releasing the ball into the air._

_But her body flinched when a whistle was blown directly into her ear and her perfectly aimed shot turned into an air ball, hitting the far rim and bouncing off._

_The entire team paused in their tracks and paid their full attention to where the whistle was coming from. No one made a sound except for the ball that failed to go through the hoop._

_Covering her right ear, Hyejoo turned around and was met with a “smile” (if you could call it a smile) from Coach Jung Eunji. Dread fills up her entire body and she looks back at her team, even the assistant coach, Yoon Bomi, giving her a worried look. They all knew what_ that _smile meant._

_Hyejoo was in deep shit._

_“Hyejoo, I want to have a word with you.” Was all Eunji said before turning around back to her office. Her voice was monotone._

_She gulps and glances at her friends, her eyes shifting between Hyunjin, Sooyoung, Yerim and Jungeun, sending a telepathic message to save her, following Eunji right behind._

Another deafening silence passed between the two and Hyejoo just wished she could get it over with.

“So I think you already know why I called you here.” Eunji begins, her voice monotone. Her eyes were still locked on to Hyejoo

“U-uh. Um.. I-... Yes.” Hyejoo curses at herself for stuttering. 

“Care to explain?” Eunji puts her hands together and leans forward. 

Hyejoo scratches her nape. She internally cringes when she feels it wet with sweat definitely from being scared shitless right now. She cleared her throat. “I failed my exam.”

“And why’s that?”

 _Because I stayed up playing video games instead of actually studying._ But of course Hyejoo wasn’t going to say that. Even if the woman sitting in front of her was shorter, hell she was smaller than most of the team, she scared the shit out of Hyejoo. 

“I didn’t study well enough.” Hyejoo simply answered. She’s not entirely wrong though.

Eunji narrowed her eyes at her and Hyejoo had to mentally tell herself to keep her ground. The older woman sighed and rubbed her face into her hands. She pulled away and turned to her computer, clicking a few times before looking back at Hyejoo who was shuffling on her feet. 

“You know my rules, Hyejoo.” 

Hyejoo nodded with a frown. Maybe she should’ve listened to Hyunjin for once last night and actually studied. But she was too caught up in her game and she lost track of time. 

Eunji rubbed her chin and hummed in thought while looking at her computer screen that showed Hyejoo’s grades. “Since your grades in the other classes are fine, I’ll go easy on you.” 

Hyejoo brightened up hearing the last part. Her eyes full of hope. That means she won’t have to be put to her death with life-threatening workouts. She’ll never forget having to dumb the entire tub of water on Yena’s passed out body from running up and down the school hills the entire practice. 

“Until you raise your grade back up for that one class, you will not step on the court. No shooting or dribbling on my court unless I see progress on your grades. No after school practice. Use that time to study and maybe find a tutor to get your grade back up.” 

Her face fell immediately. No stepping on the court? No after school practice? No basketball? Hyejoo was about to lose her mind. All her hard work to help the team advance to nationals all coming to a pause because of a stupid chemistry class. _Fuck chemistry for real._

“W-what?! But Coach, nationals are--” Hyejoo began to protest but was cut off immediately. 

“I’m aware nationals are coming up but you know my policies, Son Hyejoo. No one goes to nationals even if they’re failing one class,” Eunji closed her eyes and exhaled through her nose before opening them back to look straight into Hyejoo’s eyes, “even if you’re our star player of the team.”

Hyejoo visibly deflated. In her opinion, this punishment was much worse than what Yujin received. Okay maybe she was being a little dramatic but at least Yujin still got to play basketball. The younger girl still had a lot of energy even though she was close to fainting that day. But not even letting her step a foot in the gym? Now that’s just cruel. 

Eunji seemed to read her thoughts very clearly as she cleared her throat to gain Hyejoo’s attention. 

“Maybe not letting you step on the court is too much, but how about this. For the duration of your punishment, you are to help the volleyball team during their practices.” Eunji spoke up while she typed on her keyboard. 

Hyejoo furrowed her eyebrows and her jaw dropped. Are you serious? She opened her mouth to speak until a hand was raised towards her. 

“Nope. Don’t argue with me. I already informed Coach Park and she’s more than happy for you to lend a hand. You’ll start tomorrow. Get some practice in today and maybe find a tutor. Have a great day, Hyejoo.” Eunji waved her off. There was no room to change her mind. 

Hyejoo released a heavy sigh and walked out of the office to be met with the entire team by the door, probably eavesdropping on their conversation. It was rare for the star of the team to get in deep trouble. She gave Coach Yoon a look and was given a shrug. Bomi blew her whistle and told the entire team to get back to practice while her friends stayed to console the younger girl. 

“Shit. No practice at all starting tomorrow? That’s tough.” Jungeun spoke up first. A sad smile across her face. 

Sooyoung crossed her arms, “Failed one class and became a volleyball slave. That’s not as bad as the previous punishments Coach gave.” 

Hyunjin, who was crouching down, pushed herself up to stand up straight, “How are you gonna find a tutor also?” 

Hyejoo groans loudly and leans her forehead on Hyunjins shoulder. She totally forgot she needed to get a tutor to bring her grade backup if she wants to play basketball with her team again. She could do it by herself but knowing herself, she’d just worsen her grade even more. “What am I gonna do?” 

Yerim claps her hands together, a huge smile on her face, “We can help--” 

“I think the fuck not.” Jungeun placed her hand in front of the cheerful girl. The latter frowns. Sooyoung wanted to laugh at the dejected look on the point guard's face but let out a snort instead. 

“Last time I checked, Yerim, you barely passed that same exam too last semester.” Jungeun squints her eyes at her. 

“I passed still!”

“Bitch you cheated!” 

“But I didn’t get caught so who won here?” Yerim grins and shoots finger guns at Jungeun with a wink. Jungeun let out a retched noise and fake gags. 

“Anyways, I don’t think we’ll be much help.” Hyunjin speaks up.

Hyejoo lifted her head off from Hyunjin’s shoulder, “I don’t think so either. You guys are dumbasses and will just make me fail even more.”

“Hey!-- actually, I can’t even say anything cause you’re right.” Sooyoung grins shamelessly as she brings her hands in the air into a shrug. Everyone laughs in agreement.

“Ugh I just want this punishment done and over with.” Hyejoo pouts. 

Sooyoung pats the top of Hyejoo’s hair, “If you look at it on the bright side, at least you get to watch cute girls play volleyball-- oOF!” She rubbed her stomach where Hyejoo elbowed her. 

Of course Sooyoung got some hoe shit to say.

“Honestly what am I gonna do.” Hyejoo rubs the side of her head feeling an oncoming headache. 

She was stuck. Chemistry was one of her worst subjects because honestly? Fuck science and memorizing the periodic table. Also fuck her professor for making it an written exam. If it was multiple choice then at least her chances of failing would decrease by just a little. And now here she is, her spot to nationals on the line because she’s booboo the fool and didn’t study. Yeah that was partly her fault but that’s not the point.

Real question is, how is she going to find a tutor? And in time for nationals? 

Hyejoo may be popular for being on the basketball team and helping them bring wins to their school but she can not socialize for her life. She usually gets nervous meeting new people. The only people she talks to are her teammates. Other than that, she was, what her team calls her, “a lone wolf”. 

Sooyoung watched as Hyejoo was having an internal crisis and let out a sigh and ran her fingers through her hair. She glanced at the other three girls also giving a worried look towards the dark haired girl. 

“Hey,” Sooyoung smacked Hyejoo’s back, successfully bringing the girl out of her daze, “we’ll help you find a tutor. For now, we have a few hours left before practice is done. Let’s go.” 

Hyunjin tossed Hyejoo a basketball and nodded her head towards the court and ran off. Hyejoo inhaled and deeply exhaled before nodding and following right after her friends.

She’ll just enjoy the last day of practice with the team

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big oof to poor hyejoo. press f in chat ;( 
> 
> Anyways i hope yall enjoyed this chapter. leave me what you think in the comments below ;D 
> 
> twt: @httphyewonz  
> ig: @ga.leigh.ry


	3. Ch. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang heads home after practice and eventually finds out Hyunjin likes someone thanks to Yerim ratting her out and knows literally everything.  
> Meanwhile Hyejoo dreads waking up early to help the volleyball team the next day.

Hyejoo clicks her tongue while she rubs her damp hair with the towel hanging around her neck. She felt refreshed coming out of the showers and putting on a clean set of clothes after a long work out of non stop running, dribbling, shooting and the constant screaming from their coaches for the past two hours. 

Sooyoung, hair dripping wet and wearing everything but her shirt, walked past Heyjoo and towards her locker just a few feet away from hers. It was a normal thing in the locker rooms so it wasn’t a big deal. Plus Sooyoung likes showing off her abs at any time possible. 

“So the volleyball team right-”

“Sooyoung, on god, if you say some gay shit, I’ll whip you with this towel.” 

Sooyoung rolled her eyes,pressed her lips together and motioned zipping her mouth shut. 

Jungeun snorts behind them followed by her locker door closing shut. She sat down, legs on each side, on the bench that was placed between the two locker walls. “In all honesty, I forgot we even have a volleyball team. No one talks about them.” 

“Or you’re just stupid,” Hyunjin said as she throws her duffle bag onto the bench, also done changing. She fixes a black cap onto her head before taking a seat. “They’re the best amongst our rivaling schools.”

Jungeun raises an eyebrow, “How do you know this?”

“Maybe because I pay attention to other things besides basketball?” Hyunjin nonchalantly says. 

“Or maybe because of your massive crush on the pretty opposite hitter of the volleyball team?” Yerim pokes her head out from the other side of the wall of lockers with a knowing grin on her face. She walks over carrying her bag and gives Hyunjin a nudge with her elbow and a wiggle of her eyebrows. 

Everyone cocks a surprised look at Hyunjin. In the years that they’ve known her, Hyunjin never shared interest about crushes or a love life for that matter. They all burst out laughing seconds later at how red the girl's face was. Hyunjin pulls her cap down to cover her face to hide from the embarrassment. She didn’t try to deny it because she knows Yerim will expose every possible thing she knows. The amount of blackmail material Yerim has on her is scary. 

After putting on a shirt, Sooyoung shuts her locker and everyone moves to get their stuff and head out. 

Finally leaving the premises of their school, they continued down the sidewalk in the direction of their houses which, lucky for them, was all in the same direction. It made it easier for them to hang out together before and after class. 

While they were walking, Sooyoung's face changed at a realization. Hyejoo tilts her head, noticing the taller girl in change of expression. 

“Doesn’t the volleyball team usually have practice in the morning?” Sooyoung asks. 

Yerim nods. “From what I remember from my friend on that team, most of them scheduled their classes at noon cause of morning practice.” 

“Their practices start at 6am.” Hyunjin butts in. Everyone turns to smirk at her and she frowns at them mumbling something along the lines of “ _let me fucking breathe.”_

“Wow waking up early for practice? Couldn’t be me.” Sooyoung comments. She was never a morning person and would always be too lazy to get up and end up going back to sleep. Of course this results her in being late and being left behind from her friends. The taller girl turns to look at the raven hair girl. “Wonder how our little Hyejoo here is going to wake up that early when she’s always up playing video games.” 

Hyejoo crossed her arms and scowled, “Excuse me, I think I’ll manage by myself.” 

“Mhmm sure.” 

“Yeah right.” 

“That’s hard to believe.” 

“Pfft, whatever.”

Hyejoo narrowed her eyes at all of them. How dare her friends doubt her like that. Although she doesn't like the idea of having to wake up that early. She frowns at the thought of not her gaming time being cut short. Sooyoung chuckles before throwing an arm over her shoulder. 

“Hyejoo, I think we all know out of everyone here, you’re the most difficult to wake up. Unfortunately you’ll be waking up earlier than our usual meet up time sooo…" Sooyoung immediately places a finger on her nose. "Not it.” 

Yerim and Jungeun immediately did the same and all looked at Hyunjin who was spacing out once as always. Jungeun snapped her fingers infront of Hyunjin which caught her attention and realized what just happened. 

Taking a look around she sees Yerim, Sooyoung, and Jungeun with a finger on the tip of their noses, “Wha- Are you serious?!” 

“Nice Hyunjin! Thanks for taking one for the team!” Jungeun grins and smacks her back so hard it almost made Hyunjin’s hat fall off. Hyunjin grunts in pain. 

“Hey at least you get to see your special lady friend! Kills two birds with one stone!” Yerim laughs and shoots her finger guns.

Hyunjin facepalms. Yerim will never drop it. Oh how badly she just wants to collectively throw her friends into the road. Having enough of their teasing, she started walking ahead of them. “Ugh whatever. Bye guys.” 

They finally reached the intersection where all of them split up to their house. They all bid each other farewell while also mentioning about helping Hyejoo find a tutor. 

Hyejoo jogged to catch up with Hyunjin as their houses were in the same street. They walked in silence for a couple of minutes before Hyejoo spoke up with a grin. 

“So…” Hyejoo begins. Hyunjin shoots her a questioning look. “Is she cute?” 

Hyunjin let out the loudest groan she could emit from her throat and shoves Hyejoo’s shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hyunjin has a lady friend ;') 
> 
> so this chapter was a lil short but next chapter is where the fun begins!  
> hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> twt: @httphyewonz


	4. Ch. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Hyejoo's first day of punishment and her best friends accompany her in the morning. Besides the fact Hyunjin was being a useless gay, things were going alright until Hyejoo gets motherfucking vibe checked. But did Hyejoo pass the vibe check? Obviously not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slight trigger warning of blood. but it's not a lot. it's like one line and that's it. 
> 
> also idk if you can tell but it's obvious who's my ult of all ults.

_KNOCK KNOCK_

Hyejoo grunts at the noise and rolls over to the other side of the bed hoping whatever that sound was subsides. Another minute passes until she hears the same banging noises. She grabs the closest thing her hand could find, her gray wolf stuffed animal, and puts it against her head to block the noise from entering her ears. 

Sadly, it didn't work out when she could hear a voice shout from behind the door. 

“Son Hyejoo wake the fuck up or I’ll literally break this door down!” 

Hyejoo opens one eye and grabs her phone to look at the time.

_5:04am._

She sighs and groggily gets up from her bed. Her moves are sluggish as her legs drag her out of bed and leave the comfort of her room and to the main entrance where her best friend is close to murdering her door. 

She opens the door and flinches when Hyunjin flicks a finger at her forehead. Yerim giggling behind her. 

Hyejoo winces in pain and rubs her forehead. She notices the other girl right behind Hyunjin, backpack in tow and her duffle bag in hand. “Yerim? Why are you here also?” 

The girl shrugs, “I felt like tagging along plus I just wanted to see Hyunjin crash and burn when she sees the good ol’ lady friend.” Yerim pokes the other girl with an elbow and smirks. 

Hyunjin ignores her completely and crosses her arms, “Better be glad I woke you up or else Coach would be the one here at your steps. Now go get changed.” 

Hyejoo rolls her eyes and walks away, leaving the door open to let her friends in who immediately raided her pantry. If she had the energy to, she would’ve beat the shit out of them.

But no, Hyejoo is (relatively) a good person. 

Once she got dressed up in her usual all black attire, sweatpants and t-shirt, and made sure she had everything in her school bag. She was about to pick up her duffle bag but paused. No need to bring her duffle bag since obviously Coach banned her from practice. She frowns at this and sighs and leaves her room. She ate a quick breakfast left by her parents before they went to work while half listening to Yerim go off on another tangent about whatever it was that came up to mind. 

After cleaning up, she left the house, Hyunjin and Yerim in tow, and locked the door before they made their way to school. Hyejoo tried to keep up with the two but she was dead tired with only having 2 hours of sleep. Obviously due to her gaming addiction. 

“-hat do you think, Hyejoo?” Yerim says with a smile. 

Hyejoo blinked and stared at the girl waiting for her answer. Wait, she was talking? “What?” 

“What do you think? I think I have a tutor in mind. She’s one of my friends. I could introduce you guys.” 

“Huh? Oh, yeah that’d be great.” Hyejoo let out a loud yawn. She didn’t really care as much. The faster she found a tutor the faster she could get her grades back up and then she can go back to playing. Before she knew it, they were already in the locker rooms. 

She leaned against the wall outside of the door while she waited for her two friends to put their equipment into their respective lockers. Hyejoo was nodding off until she started to feel the ground shake a little bit with the amount of feet running down the hallway towards one of the gyms. 

Hyejoo opened her eyes lazily and yawned. At that moment Hyunjin and Yerim opened the door and looked down the halls with curious eyes. 

“Guess that was the volleyball team. They’re pretty loud so early in the morning.” 

“Yeah. I question why you didn’t join them when you’re loud yourself, Yerim.” 

“Fuck off.” Yerim scowls. 

“No thanks I’m fine. Anyways,” Hyunjin snickered before turning to Hyejoo and gave her a quick pat to her face, successfully waking her up, “better get to work or else Coach Park relays the message to Coach Jung.” 

Hyejoo pouts but says nothing as she shakes herself awake before following the direction of the team to the third gym. There were three gyms in total in their school. The main gym was where the basketball team had their practice and all official school games that required a court were held. The second one was smaller and meant for regular students not in any sports team but the physical education class. And the last gym was specifically for the volleyball team to have their practices.

As they entered the third gym, Hyejoo quirked an eyebrow to see two nets set up and balls flying everywhere. A series of “mine!”, “nice receive!”, and shoes skidding the floor echoed throughout the gym. 

“Woah this is like entering a new world.” Yerim says in awe. Hyejoo could wordlessly agree. Sure she’s watched a few volleyball games since her mom is still actively playing for a club.

They continued to look around until they saw a figure waving and gestured them over. The three of them went to who they assume is the head coach, considering the whistle and the ID labelled with _Park Chorong_ around her neck, going around the court to avoid the team and oncoming volleyballs. 

Hyejoo noticed the coach was a bit small. She thought Coach Jung was small, but Coach Park was a lot smaller. Is it normal for coaches to just be usually shorter than their athletes? 

The coach smiled at them as they approached her. “So which one of you hooligans failed their chemistry class and got all Coach Jung all fired up?” 

Both Hyunjin and Yerim shoves Hyejoo forward who bit her lip in embarrassment. 

“Didn’t think our prized all-star player would get banned from Coach Jung’s court.” Coach Park pinches her chin with her fingers while looking at the defeated girl up and down. Hyejoo could hear Hyunjin snort behind her and musters up the will to hold back from decking her best friend in the fucking face. 

"How's Coach Yoon?" The older woman randomly asks, surprising the three girls. They looked at each other before shrugging. 

"Um... she's alright. She's a lot more lenient compared to Coach Jung." Hyejoo says as she scratches her neck. Everyone in the basketball team could say that Coach Yoon was the more fun coach between the two since she was more laid back and often pulled pranks on both the players and her co-worker slash best friend. Plus she hardly gets angry compared to Coach Jung. 

A soft smile spread across Coach Parks face and if they squint they were able to see her cheeks dusted a pink color. She lets out a laugh, "I expected so from my wife." 

The three girls awkwardly laugh until they realized what she said. Yerim gasps and points a finger at the woman, "You're her wife?!" 

Coach Park just smiled at her before looking at Hyejoo. “Anyways, today starts your punishment. We’re glad to have you.” Coach Park took a hand out for a shake.

Hyejoo hesitantly shook her hands, overcoming her shock from the new information, “Y-yeah. So… what do I basically do?” She looked around the gym and frowned, seeing the amount of balls flying everywhere. She has to admit the new environment kind of intimidated her.

“Oh, before practice you have to help set up the net so you have to come a bit earlier than the girls.” Coach Park motioned to the nets, “Those poles are pretty heavy and considering your build it won’t be too hard for you.” She gave Hyejoo a couple of hard pats and the girl had to hold back a wince. No wonder she’s a volleyball coach. 

“My girls have some pretty nasty swings but they struggle lifting that thing. Although we usually keep them up anyways. During practice, just gather any stray balls and pull out the water tub for the girls water break. After practice, put the balls back into the cart and bring it to the storage room. Depending on the day, you might take the nets down.” 

Hyejoo frowns. It may sound like easy work but she would rather be spending her time practicing her shots and dribbling than chasing after loose balls. She wasn’t some dog. She’s a basketball player for fucks sake.

Coach Park glanced at the other two, “Usually I don’t allow visitors here but I’ll let today pass. I guess you could help Miss Son here.”

“Oh don’t worry about us. We’ll just be here for a couple of minutes before we take our leave, right Hyunjin?” Yerim turns to the other girl, who was busy gawking at a girl who landed a spike from the right side of the court. Yerim snorts realizing who the girl is and rolls her eyes at her best friends obvious gay attraction.

Coach Park gave a brief nod before walking away. 

Hyejoo catches Hyunjin’s dazed state and grins before leaning over to Yerim in a whisper, “So that’s the girl Hyunjin is dummy whipped for?” 

Yerim nodded enthusiastically, “Yup. I think she caught interest ever since me and Hyunjin went to one of the volleyball games as extra credit for one of our classes. How? Who knows. But I do know Hyunjin is a weak gay.”

“Do you ever shut the fuck up? Plus that’s not even close. I knew her even before that game.” Hyunjin grumbles.

“Ohoho?” Yerim grins. “Don’t be shy. Tell us some more.”

Hyejoo let out a laugh. A ball rolls in front of her and picks it up, giving it back to the girl who was chasing after it. With a short thank you and a light blush on her face, she went back onto the court. Hyejoo wasn’t oblivious to the fact that she’s good looking but she never really cared much about crushes or feelings. But she couldn’t help but admit to herself that girls crushing on her gave her a little ego boost. 

“So who’s that tutor you were talking about?” Hyejoo asks Yerim. 

“Oh! She’s in one of my classes and I heard she’s really good in chemistry despite being in the same major as me. Her name is--” A buzz erupted from Yerim’s pocket cutting her off mid sentence. Yerim took her phone out and answered the call. 

Hyejoo watched as shock was on Yerims face. It almost looked like she was having a crisis. She opened her mouth to ask what happened but Yerim beat her to it. 

“Sorry guys but I gotta go. I totally forgot I was supposed to meet my group from class to work on our project in the library. See you guys later! Make sure Hyunjin doesn’t do something gay!” 

“Hey!” Hyunjin yelled at Yerim who disappeared through the doors. Hyejoo rolls her eyes and goes to pick up 3 balls by the walls before rolling them to a girl who gestured to her to give it. 

“So are you gonna help me or continue staring at that girl?” 

Hyunjin got up from her crouched position from the wall, patting off dust. “I guess. Be happy I’m here to keep you company on your first day of your boring ass punishment.” 

Hyejoo clasped her hands together and looked at Hyunjin with fake admiration in her eyes and in a high pitched voice, “Oh my god, thank you _unnie,_ you’re such a life saver. You make me swoon. What would I do without my favorite best friend?” 

She lets out an obnoxious laugh as she blocks her face from the volleyball thrown by Hyunjin. 

Coach Park, on the other side of the court, looks down at her clipboard to make sure everyone was there but one name in particular caught her eye. She blows her whistle. Everyone in the gym stopped and gave their attention to Coach Park. But Hyunjin and Hyejoo continued their slap boxing, paying no mind to everyone.

“Jinsol.” Coach Park calls over to a tall black haired girl who jogs over. Hyejoo watches as she shakes her head and shrugs her shoulders. Coach Park frown became deeper.

Suddenly the double door opens and comes in a girl with blonde hair tied into a high ponytail, wearing her practice attire.

“Ah, there she is.” Coach Park's smile replaces the frown that was once on her face. The blonde girl looks out of breath like she was in a rush to get here. She bows a couple of times with a look of sorry plastered on her face. Coach Park pats her back before the girl goes off to the side to do some stretches and warm ups. 

Hyejoo raises an eyebrow. To be honest, the girl nowhere looked like she was capable of playing volleyball. Considering her structure, the girl was pretty small and skinny. Hyejoo was sure that volleyball requires a lot of muscles but the blonde girl’s arms and legs showed no signs of any muscles. It was almost comparable to a twig.

Thirty minutes passed and Hyejoo has been walking around the gym picking up balls that may have rolled into the corners or behind the bleachers while Hyunjin… yeah, Hyunjin is being Hyunjin.

Hyejoo gives her best friend a glance and smirks at the awestruck face the girl has. She’s surprised the girl she’s been gawking at hasn’t said anything about it since Hyunjin has been nothing but obvious about her blatant staring. If she was in the other girl’s position, she would’ve put a restraining order on Hyunjin but the nameless girl paid no attention to her gay ass best friend. Shaking her head, Hyejoo turns back around and bends down to pick up a volleyball and puts it under her arm with another volleyball. 

“Spike that ball!” 

“Don’t let it go through!” 

Hyejoo looked up and watched the practice game unfold in front of her. The shortest girl on the other side of the net, wearing a different colored practice jersey, runs to dive for the ball that manages to pass through Jinsols block despite her towering figure. Hyejoo let out a small “woah” at how the small girl successfully saves the ball from making contact to the floor. 

“It’s up! Vivi!” The short girl yells. 

A girl with dark brown hair and bangs quickly runs and places herself underneath where the ball was coming down and narrows her eyes. At the right time, she jumps up and sets the ball towards the blonde hair girl, her movements fast and quick, and jumps up. With a quick swing of her arm, her hand spikes the ball. Hyejoo widens her eyes. She was not expecting for the girl she was quietly judging to be a spiker. 

_For such a short structure, this girl got hops._ Hyejoo thought to herself. _They’re all pretty short yet they can reach above the net so high-- Why is that ball getting larger?_

“Watch out!” 

Before Hyejoo could process what’s happening, she’s knocked back onto the floor groaning in pain. The volleyballs she previously picked up were released from her grasp. She can feel her ears ringing but manages to hear a series of gasps and a couple of footsteps approaching her and holy shit what the fuck? 

“Holy shit, Hyejoo are you okay?” Hyejoo thinks that was Hyunjin’s voice. Was it Hyunjin? It sounded fuzzy but maybe it is Hyunjin. She doesn’t know. Maybe it’s God telling her it’s time. God is that you? Hyejoo swears she can see the light already. 

“Miss Son can you hear us?” She feels Coach Park placing a hand on her shoulder. 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” 

Hyejoo slowly propped herself up on her elbows. Her eyes still closed trying to bear the pain on her entire face. She brings one hand up to the sore spot on her forehead. Even just brushing her skin she winced in pain. That hit did quite a number on her. Finally opening her eyes, she sees Hyunjin wide eyed with concern. 

A hand shoots out to grab the hand on her face. “Are you okay?” A squeaky and soft voice filled with worry speaks.

Hyejoo turns her head to see a familiar head of blonde hair and cute doe eyes staring at her. Her cheeks slightly tainted pink and her mouth formed into a frown, almost pouting. The blonde kept rubbing circles on the back of Hyejoo’s hand and it was so comforting she honestly forgot the pain in her head and that her hand was being held. Hyejoo notes that the girl's hand was warm. Having a better look at the girl and seeing her up close, Hyejoo realizes…

_She’s fucking pretty._

Hyejoo didnt realize she was staring a bit too long as the girl tilted her head at her lack of response and Hyejoo swore can feel something, unsure what it was, hopefully not vomit, shoot straight through her stomach because holy shit that was fucking cute? 

She opened her mouth to say something but froze. 

_Drip._

Hyejoo looked down on the gym floor to see a drop of red. Gasps erupted from the people surrounding her. 

Oh that’s not gucci. Blood is never gucci.

“Hyejoo, your nose is bleeding!” was the last thing Hyejoo heard before her vision fades into black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally the moment we've all been waiting for :D  
> hyejoo gets fucking annihilated!! karma am i right?
> 
> i hope you enjoyed this chapter, please leave me comments down below! 
> 
> twitter:@httphyewonz


	5. Ch. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After waking up, Hyejoo meets up with her friends and eventually meets this tutor Yerim has been talking about since this morning. Out of all the people in the world, what are the odds it has to be her.

Hyejoo stirred in her sleep as she felt something cold press on her face. Wincing at the pressure being applied to her head, her eyes flutter open to see a girl with short hair. Her vision took a moment to adjust and she realized it's one the student trainers she visits too often after many injuries on the court, Haseul, putting an ice pack rolled up with napkins on the sore spot of her face. Hyejoo mumbles in pain. 

“Oh, Hyejoo you’re awake.” Haseul says with a gentle smile. 

“What happened?” Hyejoo rasps out, her throat dry from sleeping too long. She looks around to see she's inside the school nurse office. Specifically the trainers room where most injured athletes go.

Haseul shrugs, “Hyunjin brought you in here while you were passed out with tissue paper shoved into your nose. Usually you always come here because of a jammed finger or a twisted ankle but never because of a nosebleed and a hard blow to the face.” Amusement was shown in her voice. It wasn’t everyday the star basketball player got hit in the face. 

Hyejoo narrows her eyes and recalls the memory of the volleyball literally smashing into her face. She visibly winced remembering the impact and brought a hand to her face while also thinking about the pretty blonde that got Hyejoo in the trainer's room in the first place. 

She feels her cheeks warm and coughs into her fist, “Yeah, the hit was pretty hard.” Okay so maybe Hyejoo might’ve underestimated that girl's strength because holy shit it knocked her out so good she basically was asleep for 2 hours.

“Pshh, are you sure it's the hit that caused your nose to bleed? Not the cute blonde kneeling right next to you?” 

Hyejoo looks up to see Hyunjin enter the room with two drinks in her hand. She can feel her ears warm up and sees a smirk plastered on Hyunjins face while handing her the other drink.

“Yes I’m pretty sure it was from the ball. It hit me straight in the face.” Hyejoo mumbles.

“The ball hit your forehead but okay, whatever helps you sleep better at night” Hyunjin shrugs and chugs down the gatorade in her hand. 

Hyejoo grunts and slowly pushes herself off the bed. She takes hold of the ice pack in Haseul’s hand and gives her a small smile as a sign of gratitude. Hyejoo may seem rude with all her snappy attitude but she never forgets to be thankful. Mama ain’t raised no bitch.

“How many times do I have to remind you to be careful?” Haseul lightly scolds. Hyejoo couldn’t count the amount of times Haseuls always took care of her injuries. Haseul ruffles Hyejoo’s hair, to which Hyejoo melts into her motherly touch, before excusing herself and leaving the two best friends in the room after her business is done. 

Hyejoo turns to her best friend and glares, “You better not tell the others about this.” 

“Oops.” 

Hyejoo gapped her mouth in disbelief. Grabbing her phone on the table next to the bed, she opens up her phone to see a shit ton of messages from their group chat a few hours ago. 

**[Gay Circus]**

**bread whore:** LMAAO GUESS WHO KNOCKED TF OUT.

 **hag:** which bitch is it this time? 

**sunshine bitch:** is it you? with the amount of times you’ve been eyeing lady friend… 👀

 **bread whore:** bitch. 

**bread whore** : but no, Hyejoo got fucking vibed check

 **lesbian jesus:** JVSKDFD VIBED CHECK.

 **hag:** what the fuck she do this time? Did she make them cry and they all collectively beat her up? 😭

 **sunshine bitch:** i’d love to see that

 **bread whore:** i wish. But no. some girl spiked the ball straight onto hyejoos face. 

**lesbian jesus:** deserve ✨

 **sunshine bitch:** oop-

 **hag:** damn r.i.p

 **bread whore:** yeah, haseul is taking care of her rn but the funny part is that hyejoo’s nose started bleeding from gay panicking.

 **sunshine bitch:** AND I WASNT THERE TO WITNESS IT? GOD DAMN IT. THE BLACKMAIL MATERIAL!

 **lesbian jesus:** A NOSE BLEED? how gay can this get omf. I expected better from her. “big bad wolf” my ass smh

 **hag:** rip here lies son hyejoo’s gay rights. 

**sunshine bitch:** 😭🙏🏼

 **bread whore:** and jesus wept, amen. 

Hyejoo glared up at Hyunjin who grinned at her and shrugged her shoulders. She set her phone back on the table and laid back down on the bed feeling another headache coming. It could be because of the hit or because her friends are major dickheads. Maybe both. 

“Shouldn't you be in class?” Hyejoo asks, adjusting the ice pack in between her eyebrows.

Hyunjin flashes a fake look of disbelief and places her hand on her chest. “Wow? You want me out of here? After I saved your ass? I haven’t heard a single thank you.” She brought a hand to wipe nonexistent tears at the corner of her eyes. Even including sniffling noise for dramatic effect just to spite her.

Hyejoo wanted to roll her eyes as far back as they could but she knew that’d just worsen her headache. “Thanks.” She says flatly. 

“Aight cool. See ya.” With that, Hyunjin just walks out, dropping her act quickly than it came, and closes the door leaving a baffled Hyejoo behind. Hyejoo puffs her cheeks out and sighs. One day she swears she’s going to end Hyunjins life. 

The injured girl put her hands clasped over her stomach. The ice pack balancing on her forehead. Straight chillin if you would. She stared at the ceiling deep in thought. 

Honestly, Hyejoo always had fast reflexes and would catch or dodge things on time but what happened? 

Then the image of the blonde spiker flashed through her mind. The way the girl swiftly moved across the court, her hair flowing behind her and the way her eyes was filled with nothing but determination to score a point even if it was just a practice game. 

Hyejoo slaps herself. _Get a hold of yourself. No time for silly games._

* * *

[After Hyunjin takes Hyejoo to the trainers room]

Coach Park called for the end of practice and the girls dispersed to clean up the place while she headed to her office to send a quick email to the basketball coach about the recent events. Some of the girls groaned realizing they had to take down the nets today. 

Chaewon’s face was solemn as she untied the string that connects the net to the pole to loosen the tension but not entirely. Her thoughts kept drifting off to the injured girl who was taken away by her friend. 

“Still thinking about what happened?” 

Chaewon glanced up to Heejin giving her a worried smile. Heejin gently rubbed her back to comfort her.

“That swing was pretty nasty honestly. Any harder and I’m sure you could’ve given that chick permanent brain damage.” A shorter girl appeared next to them with two balls under her arms.

The blonde huffs and buries her face into her hands. “Yeojin, please don't say that. I’m actually worried that I might’ve given her brain damage!” 

Jinsol walks over and laughs, “Of course our ace has to be the one to spike the ball straight into some girl's face.” 

“Hey! Usually my spikes are planned accordingly!” 

“Are you saying you planned to give that girl a near death experience?” 

“Wha-- No! Listen, I-I just got distracted and--” Chaewon stopped mid sentence. 

Jinsol crosses her arms and raises an eyebro, a grin still present on her face, “And what?” 

_She was really pretty and I got distracted because I saw her looking at me and I gay panicked._

Her friends looked at each other weirdly but with a matching smirk on their faces. “So you… spiked the ball into her direction?” Yeojin says. 

Chaewon snapped out of her trance and looks at her confused, “What--”

“You spoke out loud again.” Heejin grins. 

Chaewon feels her face heat up and opens her mouth to say something but nothing comes out except a stuttering, blabbering mess. She really needs to stop speaking what's on her mind unintentionally.

“Hey, as much as we all want to clown Chaewon’s highlight today, help me put the net away so we can all go get something to eat.” Vivi spoke up from behind, carrying the other pole with the help of Jiwoo. 

Chaewon pouts at her friends and follows right behind them. She admits it was unlikely of her to end up injuring someone else. Her friends and their coach did point out that once she sets her eyes on a spot, that’s where the ball will go for sure. 

And true to their words, the ball went where her eyes looked. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


A few muffled shouts could be heard in the room and anyone walking by would think a murder was taking place. A loud thud followed by a grunt and the door slides open with a couple of more shouts, shoving a body out. 

“You’ve stayed here far too long, Hyejoo!” Haseul grumbles. 

“I’m literally still injured?!”

“Your bleeding stopped and you were literally just playing on your phone! Now go!” Haseul slams the door in Hyejoo’s face. 

Hyejoo clicked her tongue in clear annoyance. She ran her fingers through her raven-locks and placed both hands on her hips. “At least give me another ice pack!” The door swung open and an ice pack flew straight into her face followed by the door slamming again. 

Her lips twitch in annoyance and stomps off towards the direction of the cafeteria, knowing her friends would be there right now, with one hand holding the ice pack to her head while the other is shoved into the pocket of her black hoodie.

Just as she suspected, her friends were seated near the wall sitting like the hoodrats that they are minus Yerim because she was nowhere to be found. She approached them quietly, avoiding running into people in the crowded area, until Sooyoung noticed her figure trying to make it to them.

“Panic Gay number two is here!” She cheered, followed with “woo’s” and clapping from her friends. They could care less about the looks they receive from other students. 

Hyejoo furrowed her eyebrows but stayed silent. She didn’t have the energy to fight these fools right now. “At least I’m not number 1.” She took a seat right next to Hyunjin, stealing a fry from her plate.

Jungeun grins, “Of course not. Number one is sitting right next to you!” 

Hyejoo smirks and throws an arm around Hyunjin, wiggling her eyebrows teasingly and making kissy faces towards the girl to annoy her as payback to what she sent in the group chat previously. She releases a painful shout when an elbow is dug into her gut. 

A few minutes passed and Yerim was still nowhere to be found. Hyejoo looks at the time on her phone and raises an eyebrow to see a message in their group chat from their missing friend.

**[Gay Circus]**

**sunshine bitch:** i’m currently hunting someone down! I’ll be there in a bit!

 **hag:** whos body we hiding

 **lesbian jesus:** i’ll help

 **bread whore:** im good at covering up

 **baby wolf:** what the fuck guys?

Hyejoo looks up at her friends who were currently on their phones replying in their group chat. Hyejoo narrows her eyes and questions if she’s friends with a bunch of murderers. But knowing them, she actually wouldn’t be surprised. Her friends have done questionable stuff before.

Out of nowhere, Sooyoung clapped her hands together to draw everyone's attention. They all gave her a confused look and she paused for dramatic effect before she turned her head towards Hyejoo. Hyejoo leaned back in her seat, a little bit weirded out by the way Sooyoung was staring straight into her soul. 

“...What?” 

Sooyoung pointed a finger at her, “Give us one good reason to gain back your gay rights.” She states out from the blue. Hyejoo raised an eyebrow. What the actual fuck? Hyunjin and Jungeun nodded their heads and leaned forward. Hyejoo gapped her mouth open and looked between the three. She felt she was sitting in front of three judges accusing her of a crime she didn’t commit. 

“Did I even have them to begin with?” Hyejoo snarkingly remarks. 

Jungeun rolls her eyes and points a fork at her, “Whatever. Tell us what happened--” 

“Guys I’m here!” 

All four heads turned to find their cheery friend waving one hand in the air, gaining attention from other students in the cafeteria as well, running towards her while dragging something behind her. Hyejoo couldn’t see from the angle she was sitting in, but she just hopes it’s not a body bag. 

“Oh? What took you so long?” Jungeun asks. 

“I was on my way here when I ran into the person that could tutor our little dumb wolf!” Yerim says between breaths. Hyejoo grumbles under her breath and grabs a water bottle on the table to chug down. She didn’t need to be reminded of how stupid she is.

Sooyoung stands up and looks around, “Where is she?” 

“Right here!” Yerim pulls the girl hidden behind her forward. She stumbles a bit but manages to gain her balance back before she falls forward and makes out with the floor. She was very small and hid so well behind Yerim that the others didn’t even notice her till now.

Hyejoo looked her up and down, still drinking her water. She was petite and stood very timidly. The girl seems very familiar to her. Pale skin, cute eyes, blonde hair--

Then it clicks. 

_Oh._

Hyejoo chokes and spits out her water from her mouth, her wide eyes meeting with Hyunjin’s same expression and lands back on the blonde girl standing in front of them. The blonde seems to register the situation as well as her eyes matched Hyunjin and Hyejoo’s. She placed a hand to her gaping mouth. 

Simultaneously pointing at one another, Hyejoo and the blonde screamed at the same time.

“You!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> damn i wonder who the tutor is aha haaaa :P but anyways it should be obvious on what the girls position is in volleyball right?  
> hope you enjoyed this chapter ;')  
> leave comments down below, it's gladly appreciated :D 
> 
> twitter: httphyewonz


	6. Ch. 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What are the odds the girl you're tutoring is the same girl you spiked a ball straight into the face.

Chaewon walked out of the locker rooms followed by her five close teammates feeling refreshed after long hours of practice. She wasn’t particularly fond of morning practice because it meant having to wake up early. It’s sort of a problem when the blonde stays up all night playing games which in turn she comes to practice late. 

Luckily her coach is very lenient at times. Underline ‘at times’. Perks of being a volleyball star. 

“So where are you going for the meantime? You don’t have class until about an hour or so right?” Heejin asks, bumping their shoulders together lightly. 

Chaewon hummed and took her phone out to look at the recent message notification she received while in the locker room. “I don’t know. My friend messaged me about being someone's tutor but…” She trailed off unsure. It came out of the blue from her friend, but with how urgent her messages sounded, it seems like Chaewon didn't have much of a choice.

Heejin raised an eyebrow. “Tutoring?” She placed a hand over her mouth, feigning a gasp, “Are you capable of that?” 

Chaewon glared and raised a threatening fist but Heejin threw her head back with a loud laugh. No matter how long they’ve been best friends, Heejin would always find a way to tease the other girl.

“I’m kidding! I’m kidding!” Heejin giggles and Chaewon rolls her eyes, “Are you fine with it though? Do you even know who this person is?” 

Chaewon shook her head and shrugged. “My friend never told me her name besides the fact she’s failing chemistry.” 

Heejin nodded. She was well aware of how well the smaller girl is freakishly smart in chemistry. There were many times in the past Heejin would cry at Chaewons front steps just to help her with chemistry homework. But it still baffles Heejin how the girl can be so smart yet be so stupid in almost setting the kitchen on fire during one of their sleepovers. 

Heejin held back a laugh and shook her head. She bumped her hip against Chae won, “Well if this person is a murderer just text m--”

“PARK CHAEWON!” 

Both girls stopped in her tracks and turned towards the voice. With how loud the girl screamed it wouldn’t be hard to ignore. Even other students turned their heads. 

A few feet away Chae won could see a very noticeable head of purple, very hard to miss especially when the girl was waving both arms frantically in the air. She almost looked like those inflatable balloons in front of a car dealership. 

Chaewon smiled to see Yerim running towards her. They engulf each other into a hug having already grown close to each other in such a short amount of time. At the beginning of the school year, they were put in the same class together despite their year difference and got close as they were both in the same majors. 

“Are you currently free right now?” Yerim asks once she pulls away, but her arms are still around the girl. 

“Um. Yeah. My next class is just in an hour--” 

“Great! Come with me!” Yerim cut her off before grabbing her wrist 

“Huh- Wait!” 

Chaewon couldn’t say anything else as Yerim began running off dragging her along. Heejin watched amusedly at her friend being dragged along like a ragdoll. 

“Well I’ll see you later, Chaewon!” She hears Heejins voice fade into the background. 

Chaewon tried to keep up with Yerim’s fast movement. She’s well aware of Yerim being part of the basketball team and even heard from other students that she plays a key role in the team of being quick and agile. It’s no wonder Chaewon is having a difficult time keeping up with her pace.

The smaller girl looked around and noticed they were headed towards the cafeteria and frowns, the realization dawning on her that she’s going to meet that helpless student. 

She just hopes she doesn’t regret her decision.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Okay so basically, Chaewon totally regrets her decision because here she was, seated in front of the girl she almost killed this morning, face flushed red in embarrassment. Not only that, the stares given by everyone at the table, minus Hyejoo, made her feel smaller than she already is. 

Chaewon wanted nothing more than to just disappear in her seat. 

“What a small world. I can’t believe you’re the one who vibed check the fuck out of Hyejoo. I totally forgot you were on the volleyball team.” Yerim laughs.

_ Vibed Check? What does that even mean?  _ Chaewon nervously laughed, “Haha…” God she sounds so pathetic right now. 

Things became silent and the other three girls at the table gave her a serious look. Chaewon shifted her in her seat uncomfortably. She heard from other people that their basketball team is a force you should not mess with. They were intimidating for sure and being in their presences almost made Chaewon piss her pants.

Chaewon wishes she could turn back time to prevent the incident that led to hurting one of their teammates.  Because now they look like they were about to beat her up. Except Yerim, she was just sitting there and smiling. 

Chaewon looked around trying to plan an escape. Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a snort erupt from one of the girls. She turns to see the tallest of their group covering her mouth hiding a laugh and then pointed a finger at her while talking to Hyejoo.

“I can’t believe you, Hyejoo. You let this cute girl ruin your precious face?” She let out a chuckle and turned her head to Chae won who flinched in her seat. “think we should keep her! What’s your name?” The tall girl smiled.

Chaewon blinked. Was this girl gonna put her on her hitlist to murder her later? “Uh… Park Chaewon…” 

“Cool! I’m Ha Sooyoung.” Sooyoung then places a hand to the girl next to her, who was still wiping her face and shirt from the aftermath of Hyejoo spitting water in her direction, “This is Kim Jungeun. Over there is Kim Hyunjin and I’m sure you know our lovely and sweet Hyejoo.” She said Hyejoo’s name mockingly while she cooed and pinched her cheeks. The other girl scowled and tried to bite Sooyoung's finger. 

Chaewon recognized Hyunjin as the same girl who was with Hyejoo this morning. She’s also the girl she remembers Heejin was talking about in the locker rooms, “Right…” 

“Well Chaewon it was nice meeting you. But I gotta head to class.” Sooyoung flashes her a smile and Chaewon feels her heart jump. She hears students talking about Ha Sooyoung being the biggest charmer of the school when she doesn’t look like she wants to kill you. Everyone has a crush on her, even if you don’t have a crush on her. 

Sooyoung gets up from her seat and picks up her bag, pointing at her teammates. “Yall better not be late to practice. Except you, Hyejoo. I don’t care about you.” 

Hyejoo groans and bangs her head on the table hard enough that the lunch trays jumped up. Chaewon looks at her concerned, worried that she might get herself another headache. With that, Sooyoung walks away from their table with a small finger gun.

Jungeun throws the used napkin onto the pile of trash in the middle of the table and gets up a few minutes after Sooyoung left. A wet stain was still visible on her shirt. “I’ll be going to the locker room to change. Hyejoo you owe me a new shirt.” 

She ruffles Hyejoo’s hair, who grunts in response, and leaves after throwing their trash away. Once Jungeun was out of sight, Yerim turned her head towards Chae won.

“Anyways, so Chaewon you’re fine with tutoring Hyejoo right?” Yerim smiles, voice full of hope. 

Chaewon fiddles with her fingers and glances at the said girl. She flinches in her seat almost at the way Hyejoo was… glaring at her. With the way Hyejoo’s eyebrows were furrowed and her upper lip lifted, it looks like Hyejoo was going to kill her. 

But no, that’s just Hyejoo’s resting bitch face. Chaewon just doesn’t know that.

Chaewon inhales deeply and closes her eyes for a moment, arm crossed over her chest and bit her bottom lip. She needed to think deeply about this. Will she benefit from this? She seriously doesn’t know. She’s not really getting paid to do this so she could actually decline Yerim’s request. 

Hyejoo watched as Chaewon was deep in thought. She wasn’t thrilled that her possible tutor would be the  ~~ cute ~~ girl that could’ve given her brain damage but considering the circumstances that nationals were about in two months, she’ll take whatever she can get. 

Hyejoo clears her throat, “Listen… , I know our first impressions of each other aren't that… great,” Chaewon opens her eyes to meet Hyejoos, “but I’d really appreciate it if you could just help me.” 

Chaewon notices Hyejoo’s face beginning to soften, her eyes almost pleading. She turns to Yerim who gives her a reassuring smile and a nod. 

She presses her lips together and with a final nod, making up her mind. It took just a simple “alright” that got Yerim and Hyunjin clapping and letting out a couple of small cheers. 

Hyejoo sighs in relief, running her hand through her hair and leans back in her chair. Great, now all she needs to do is get her grades back up in time for nationals. 

She just hopes this next few months will just pass by. She has a championship to win anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter but it's better than nothing. Sorry for the long wait. I kind of got caught up with other things like drawing and writing that yeorry fic so i basically almost forgot about this fic. Tbh i honestly thought about giving up this fic but because one of my friends convinced me to keep going, I'll try my best to keep this story alive. 
> 
> Anyways I hope you enjoyed this small chapter. Leave a comment below because it helps motivate me to keep this fic alive <3 
> 
> twt: httphyewonz  
> also follow my art acc on twitter if you'd like: galeighry


	7. Ch. 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second day of Hyejoo's suffering. Not really. She's just over dramatic, it's not even THAT bad.

Hyejoo lets out a yawn, sleep still evident in her eyes, and lets out a small shiver when the cold morning breeze briefly blows by her. Clad in nothing but an Adidas sweatpants, a graphic white t-shirt and a zip up jacket that did nothing to stop the cold air, she briskly fastened her pace towards the school. 

She was alone this time since Hyunjin and Yerim tagging along so early in the morning was just a one-time thing only. And mostly out of pity. But then again this was part of Hyejoo’s punishment anyways. Hyejoo grumbled to herself of the recent events that led to her current situation. 

It wasn’t that bad at least when now she finally got the chance to watch the sunrise on her walk. Though she does regret staying up late again playing League of Legends last night, but honestly who could blame her? Basketball star by day (currently on hold), pro gamer by night. 

By the time she arrived in front of the school, the sun was already above the horizon. She stood under the heater by the entrance to warm up for a couple of seconds before she made her way towards the gym hallways. The school was usually barren minus some students, most likely the student council, or students who have classes this early, and few other athletes getting in their morning workouts in. 

Hyejoo entered the locker room for the girls basketball team and turned the dial on her locker to put in her password. She places her backpack inside and takes off her jacket, hanging it on the hook. Hyejoo frowns at the lack of her duffle bag that she usually has inside. With a huff, she slams her locker shut. 

She stops by the main gym and looks through the small window, staring at the basketball hoops solemnly at the fact her Coach banned her from any sort of playing at school. 

“At least I can still play in my backyard.” Hyejoo grumbles to herself and drags her feet towards the third gym.

Walking in, she noticed that the nets were taken down from yesterday and made her way to the storage room at the far corner of the gym. It was already unlocked when she turned the door handle open. Probably the coach probably came by earlier. Hyejoo releases a sigh before tying her hair up in a high ponytail and sets off to work. 

It took about 30 minutes for Hyejoo to completely set up both nets on the court at the correct height. “ _ 7 feet and 4 inches.”  _ She remembers Coach Park’s words. She didn’t struggle as much as she thought she would considering the work out Coach Jung gives the team is a lot more intense. At least that was one good thing coming out from their work out. 

She pushes three carts full of volleyballs out into the court near the entrance and with a quick glance of the gym she considers herself done with her pre-practice work. 

Hyejoo glances at her watch and notices she still has plenty of minutes to spare before the team comes in. Wouldn’t hurt to do a couple of stretches and some minor workouts just to keep her body warmed up. The grind never stops, y’know. Even if she’s not doing much physical activity it always feels nice to stretch. 

Plus who knows if a wild Sooyoung or Yerim appears out of nowhere to tackle her into the ground. She is not going to have a repeat from a couple weeks ago and swore she heard her bones pop out of place from the sheer force Sooyoung gave.

Hyejoo looks around, hands on her hips, trying to figure out what else to do since she left her phone in her locker. 

She walked over to one of the carts and took out a volleyball. She started to dribble it like a basketball and was mindlessly dribbling it between her legs.

Despite her older sister being in a volleyball team for a different school, Hyejoo had zero experience with volleyball. She instead picked up basketball from her dad, because she thought it was cooler and always got excited when she saw players dunk, who then started teaching her at a very young age. Since then she became in love with basketball and the rest was history. 

She was mindlessly tossing the ball around in the air until she heard a couple of footsteps and the door to the gym swung open with Coach Park entering and the rest of the volleyball team right after her. 

Hyejoo puts the volleyball back in the cart and politely bows to the small coach who gives her a smile and a nod. She gave a shy smile for some of the volleyball players that looked her way. God why is she so awkward. 

Hyejoo leans against the wall while the volleyball team begins to do their warm ups before they start doing their spiking drills, which Hyejoo notes to herself to stand off to the side, facing parallel with the net. She doesn’t want to visit Haseul today again. 

Luckily Coach told her she didn’t have to chase any of the balls for this drill. She sighed in relief. At least her face is safe.

In the midst of all the shoes skidding on the floor and balls flying around, Hyejoo raises an eyebrow with mild interest as she notices Chaewon up next for her turn in line for their drills. 

The smaller girl tightens the hair tie holding up her blonde hair and lowers herself down to receive the ball Vivi was about to spike. The orange hair girl spikes the ball while standing to which Chaewon successfully receives and immediately takes a couple of steps back. 

Chaewon narrows her eyes as she carefully watches Vivi jump up, bringing her hands up above her for a set. Right on que, Chaewon begins running towards the net bringing her hands in front before pulling them back behind her. She jumps straight up into the air the same moment Vivi releases the ball towards her. It was like time slowed down and Hyejoo's jaw dropped to see the girl jump so surprisingly high despite her short structure as Chaewon pulled back her hand, and with a quick swing of her arm, perfectly spiked the ball onto the other side of the net. 

“Woo! Nice kill, Chaewon!”

“That was spicy!” 

Chaewon flashes a toothy grin at her teammates, giving a couple of them a thumbs up. She always appreciated how her teammates never held a grudge against her for being considered the “best spiker” of the team but instead opted to cheer and encourage her on. Besides it’s not like she flaunts it around anyways. She’s just here to play the game she loves and enjoys.

“At least it’s not the girls face today!” Someone yelled

Chaewon's face flushes in embarrassment and turns to look at one of the girls in line with a huge smile, “Jiwoo!” The blonde glanced over at the wall to see Hyejoo looking at her with an amused smile and felt her face turn redder. She quickly turned away and went to retrieve her ball. 

The rest of the practice was spent with Hyejoo just boredly walking around, handing out water cups to the girls, while ignoring the comments she hears made by some girls. Something along the lines of being pretty or beautiful. Hyejoo knew she was attractive but she typically didn’t like getting compliments. It made her feel all awkward and curl in on herself.

Two hours passed and Coach Park blew her whistle to gather up the team in a huddle and give feedback and any small announcements. With a team cheer, they all run out towards the locker rooms to freshen up. 

Chaewon walks out of the gym with a towel around her neck and Heejin next to her until she feels a tap on her shoulder. Both girls stopped in their tracks and looked at Hyejoo awkwardly scratching her nape. 

Hyejoo awkwardly clears her throat, “So uh... when do you wanna meet up?” The taller girl asks. She spoke in such a low voice that Chaewon had to lean forward a bit and strain her ears to pick up what she was saying. Heejin looked surprised and raised a questioning eyebrow at this exchange. Who the fu-

Chaewon hummed in thought, “We can start after our classes are done in the library today maybe? If that’s fine with you?” She tilts her head. 

Hyejoo scratches her head to think for a moment before nodding her head. She wasn’t doing anything after classes. No practices for her anyways. She throws a hand up to wave and goes back inside to clean up the gym. 

Chaewon and Heejin continue walking and Heejin nudges her side once they enter the locker rooms. “Did something happen? Is she going to fight you for almost killing her?” 

“What- No! I’m not fighting anyone!” The blonde looks baffled for a moment, looking at her best friend up and down like she’s crazy. 

Heejin giggles, “Then what’s happening after school?” 

Chaewon opens up her locker and takes out a fresh pair of clothes, “That’s the friend Yerim was talking about.” Heejin raised an eyebrow and let out a small “ahh” in understanding. Now things are starting to make sense for her. 

For a second Heejin was contemplating on bringing Jiwoo to take care of things if her best friend's life was in danger. Contrary to Jiwoos happy and friendly personality, she can and will kick ass if needed.

“What friend are we talking about? Is Chaewon getting a girlfriend?” Speaking of the devil, Jiwoo pops up out of nowhere, startling the two.

“What? Before me?” Jinsoul groaned from the other side, “Who is it?” 

Chaewon facepalms. Leave it to her friends to misunderstand something and make up weird situations. “No guys! I’m not dating anyone. I don’t have time for any of that stuff.” 

Don’t get her wrong, Chaewon has been single for god knows how long. Heejin has seen it all throughout high school how she wouldn’t bat an eye when someone showed at least a little bit of interest in her. She’s very picky about just giving her heart out to someone. Not only that, she’s just way too occupied with other stuff. Dating and crushes has never been a priority to Park Chaewon. But a tiny part of her wishes she could experience something like that one day. 

“I’m just tutoring my friend's friend who turns out to be that girl helping our team.” She explained with a sigh. 

“Also known as the girl you knocked out with your spike.” Chaewon harshly shoves a giggling Heejin.

“You’re tutoring water girl?” Yeojin questions, freshly showered and changed, walking over to the group of girls. 

Chaewon sighs, “Yeah. I’m meeting her after school to start studying.” 

Yeojin lips curl up into a grimace, “What if she kills you in revenge?” The girl does look like she's some part of gang and it doesn't help that her face looks like she's constantly planning ways to break someones bone in every possible way. 

“I’ll kill her first!” Jiwoo shouts. Everyone collectively winces and feels a shiver run down their spine. They all know she will.

Jinsol claps her hands together, a glint in her eyes as a gasp escapes past her lips. Chaewon groans knowing what that means. 

She’s about to say something very absurd. 

“Oh my gosh, I connected the dots!” 

Their youngest friend rolled her eyes in the midst of brushing her hair, “You didn’t connect shit.” 

“I connected them!” Jinsoul completely ignores Yeojin, the excitement still present in her eyes. “Wouldn’t it be interesting if y’all go past that tutor-mentee relationship and… you know.” Jinsol motions a limp wrist and wiggles her eyebrows. 

There it is. 

Chaewon widens her eyes before her face contorts to one of her signature stank faces. To think their friend, who’s surprisingly is a god in math and pretty much smart as hell, would think of something stupid like that. “No that’s not it--”

Jiwoo squeals at this and begins jumping in her place. “That’d be cute! You’re onto something, Jinsol!”

“This is why I’m a genius!” Jinsol puts her hand up against her chin, her forefinger and thumb pointed out in a shape of a finger gun. 

“Hmm... I don’t think so!“ Is all Jiwoo says before walking away as Jinsol pouts. 

Heejin and Yeojin break out into a loud laugh at the two and laugh louder to see Chaewon on the verge of losing her brain cells. Her friends can get out of hand sometimes. Not thinking too much about what’s to come, Chaewon goes inside the bathroom to change. 

None of that is going to happen anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's 12am right now and I started revising this chapter since 5pm lmao. Anyways... *limp wrist* y'know? ;))
> 
> Leave a comment below on what you think of this chapter, it's greatly appreciated and helps motivate me to update faster:]]
> 
> twt: httphyewonz  
> (follow my art acc too: @galeighry)


	8. Ch. 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First day of tutoring and Hyejoo just wants Chaewon to stop shaking in fear every time she looks at her. Besides that, Hyejoo understands why her best friend is called "Panic Gay #1" with her own eyes.

Hyejoo releases a tired yawn as she steps out of her last class of the day. Her lack of sleep started to present itself by the second half of her first class and ever since, she’s been nodding off in her seat. 

She just wanted to go home already, but obviously the world had other plans for her because here she is making her way to the school library that she rarely ever visits. She almost got lost the first time and ever since she never went there again. Who has time for the library anyways?

Digging into her pockets to pull out her phone, she watches gameplays just to entertain her for the meantime on her way there. That is until she feels a sudden weight around her shoulders and turns her head to find her best friend smiling at her. 

“How was dog duties this morning?” Hyunjin questions with a grin. 

Hyejoo shrugged, “It was alright. I didn’t get hit this time.” Hyunjin released a laugh to which Hyejoo smirked. 

The whole duration of their walk consisted of the two just mindlessly talking about whatever came to mind like recent basketball games with occasional slap boxing that earned a few weird looks towards the two best friends. 

“There was no way that was an offensive foul, honestly. Clearly he flopped.” Hyunjin argues, her hands waving in the air. Hyejoo rolls her eyes and scoffs.

“They replayed that clip a billion times. How blind can you be to see the other guy clearly shoved him. ” Hyejoo grin and nudges her friend with an elbow, “Of course you should know. With the amount of times you kept giving us turn overs for almost tackling people.”

Hyunjin gaped her mouth open and placed a hand against her chest in feign offence, “I do not! Not my fault they can’t stand their grou--OOF.” Her sentence was cut off as her body collided with another. Her arm immediately reached over and held the other person to prevent them from falling, bringing them into a hug. 

“Ah, I’m sorry!” The voice says. 

Hyejoo stares with wide eyes and raised eyebrows to see who Hyunjin ran into. If she recalls, it was one of the girls from volleyball practice who spikes from the right side. 

Wait that means it’s-- 

“M-my bad! Heejin, I didn’t see you there. Haha…” Hyunjin nervously laughs and quickly releases her hold on the girl and creates space between them, bringing up one hand to scratch her neck. She was unaware she just unconsciously put Heejin into a hug. Hyejoo flinched with how fast Hyunjin pulled away. 

Heejin opens her eyes when she realizes she wasn’t meeting the floor and instead in enveloped into a hug. She looks up surprised for a moment before her eyes lights up finding a familiar face, a smile adorned her features. “Oh, Hyunjin! What a surprise!” 

Hyejoo watches amusingly at how her best friend’s face is turning redder by the minute and having trouble maintaining eye contact with the girl in front of her. She has never seen her best friend this nervous and so, what Sooyoung would call, gay panick-y in their years of friendship. 

_ This is great blackmail material _ . Hyejoo thinks to herself.

Heejin notices Hyejoo standing next to the girl and she smiles, not as big compared to when she looked at Hyunjin. “Oh, Hyejoo! Thank you for helping out the volleyball team every morning. Chaewon is already inside.” Heejin points a thumb over her shoulder towards the entrance of the library. “I came with her to keep her company but I need to head out to the theatre building, so I’ll leave her in your hands.” 

Hyejoo smiles awkwardly (she needs to get better at that. She’s been told she sometimes she looks constipated) and nods her head. Hyejoo notes that Heejin is very… nice. The total opposite of her dumbass group of friends. She’s starting to understand why Hyunjin is wrapped around her finger. 

“I’ll see you later, Hyunjin!” Heejin does a tiny wave and flashes her a wink before walking away, her hair blowing in the wind like in those CF commercials. Hyejoo swears she hears Hyunjin let out a choke grunt next to her. 

Hyunjin nervously waves back at her retreating figure. Once Heejin’s figure disappears around the corner, Hyunjin lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest. 

She hears snickers next to her. “You really are Panic Gay Number 1.” 

“Shut up!” Hyunjin punches her shoulder. Hyejoo let out an obnoxious loud laugh and doubled over. The older girl frowns at her. 

Finally recovering from her laughing fit, Hyejoo wiped a tear from her eyes. “So care to explain?” She wiggles her eyebrows. 

Hyunjin pouts and grumbles, “We’re in the same department but different branches. I’m in the visual art and she’s in the performance arts, but our branch helped out the theatre majors for their upcoming play a few weeks ago and… yeah.” 

_ Hyunjin sat up straight and stretched her aching back and neck, hearing it pop after being in the same hunched position for too long. For the past 30 minutes she’s been on the floor painting one of the props for the play. Although the job was fairly easy, it was rough on her back for sitting in an uncomfortable position. _

_ The prop she was assigned to, along with two other students, was probably the biggest prop out of all of them. Not only that, they were told to put as many details as possible to make it seem realistic. So here she is surrounded by different buckets of colored paints and her apron covered in an assortment of them.  _

_ Hyunjin wiped a bead of sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand and huffed seeing there’s still a lot more places to paint. _

_ Too engrossed in examining her work, she didn’t notice the person crouched down next to her.  _

_ “Uwah, this is amazing!”  _

_ Hyunjin jumped in surprised and sat up straight in shock to look at the brown haired girl that appeared next to her, looking at the prop with much awe. How long has she been standing there?  _

_ “Uhh…”  _

_ “Oh, I’m sorry did I scare you?” The girl looked at her worriedly, her lips forming a small pout and Hyunjin breath hitched at how amazingly pretty she is. She couldn’t help but think the girl reminded her of a cute little puppy.  _

_ “It’s alright…” Hyunjin muttered, feeling herself struggling to speak as if there was something stuck in the back of her throat.  _

_ The girl flashes a bright smile that makes her eyes disappear and Hyunjin swears she feels her heart skip a couple beats.  _

_ “Hi, I’m Jeon Heejin! I’m part of the theatre department.” She holds a hand out for a shake.  _

_ “I’m Kim Hyunjin… Uhh” Hyunjin looks down at her dirty hands covered in too many patches of dried paint. She was unsure if she should shake her hand, cursing at herself for not washing the crusted flakes off. _

_ Heejin notices this and laughs, simply taking hold of Hyunjins dirtied hands, giving it a small shake. Hyunjin was a little thrown off because how dare she dirty her precious hands with her painted ones? Hyunjin can feel how soft Heejin’s hand is compared to her rough, calloused hands yet she didn’t want to let go. But the moment only lasts a few seconds before Heejin releases their hold and Hyunjin is left yearning for more. _

_ “Well Hyunjin, keep up the good work! I’ll see you later!” Heejin waves before walking away, also taking Hyunjins heart along with her. _

  
  


Hyunjin crosses her arms over her chest and narrows her eyes, “You better not tell this to the others or else I’ll make  _ sure _ you don’t come back to practice.”

Hyejoo placed at hand on her chin in deep thought. “Hmm… Maybe.” 

Hyunjin scoffs, “At least I didn’t have a nose bleed.” 

“I got hit in the face!”

“Mhmm, right. What a coincidence that it happened after you stared at Chae won for like, what? 10 seconds?” 

“Tch. Whatever. See you later, nerd.” Hyejoo turns around and throws a wave behind her shoulder. Hyunjin laughs at her best friend and shouts a bye before leaving as well. 

Hyejoo pushes the doors open and looks around. Shelves containing various books lining areas of the room and upstairs as well. Bean bags and cushion chairs were placed around. Libraries weren’t her thing but she admits that the library looked fairly nice. 

She begins walking, looking for Chae won, until she notices a head of blonde hair sitting alone at an empty table meant for two people. 

Her legs brought her towards where the blonde hair sat and was only a few feet away to see her hunched over, writing something in her journal, looking focused and—oh wow, the furrow between her brows was almost cute in a way. Hyejoo tries not to stare at the girl but finds herself in a losing battle. And, of course,  _ now  _ the sun decides to peek out from behind the clouds and cast a soft glow over Chaewon.

God, what is this, a badly written Netflix rom-com? Yeah, most likely. 

“Uh, hi?” 

Hyejoo immediately snaps out of her daze only to realize she’d walked right up to her and had been blankly staring for who knows how long.

_ What the fuck Hyejoo? Don’t be a creep.  _

Chaewon doesn’t know if she should say something or just smile and wave but Hyejoo had been staring at her for more than a couple seconds. 

Of course she still feels awful about spiking a ball directly at Hyejoo’s face, but did that warrant the girl  _ staring,  _ borderline glaring, at her for this long? Not even a single word has come out from Hyejoo’s mouth. 

“Hyejoo?”  And now, Chaewon is staring at her and the furrow in her brows has changed to one of confusion. Hyejoo seems to finally start functioning properly.

“Oh, shit, sorry. I was just thinking. About nationals and... uh, stuff. Yeah.” She inwardly cringes at herself. Great save, Hyejoo. Your capability to talk to cute girls went out the window. 

They stood there in awkward silence before Chaewon hastily put up her sociology homework into her binder to make more room on the table. 

“Um, would you like to sit down?” Chaewon asks hesitantly, pointing at the chair on the other side of the table. 

Hyejoo nodded and pulled the chair out and took a seat. She zips open her bag, struggling for a bit, and takes out her journal and her chemistry textbook and drops it on the table, causing a loud thud to erupt through the library. 

Chaewon flinched at the sound while Hyejoo frowns in her seat at the glares and “shhh’s” she earned from the students around them and grumbles a “sorry”.  Chaewon clears her throat and clasps her hands together above the table. “So what do you need help with?” 

Hyejoo scratches her head, flipping through her notes. Chaewon notices the sloppy handwriting and the many doodles of what she assumes is a wolf with a triangular mouth. If she was completely honest, the doodles remind her of Hyejoo. Kind of like a self portrait. 

After a few more seconds of Hyejoo flipping pages she answers flatly, “Everything.” 

Chaewon frowns. That doesn’t help at all and definitely Chaewon can’t reteach her every single topic from the beginning. 

“Do you have your recent test with you?” 

Hyejoo picks up her bag and rummages through it until her hand pulls out a crumpled piece of paper. “Here it is.” She flattens it out before handing it to Chaewon. 

Chaewon scans over her test and raises her eyebrow at some of the weird answers the girl wrote. She decides it's better to not point it out. At least she knows she had a little bit of brain damage before the spiking incident because what kind of person answers the question of “ _ What scientist is usually credited with inventing the Periodic Table”  _ and answers with “a smart boi”? She even spelt boy wrong. 

Chaewon looks up from the paper to see the girl playing a game on her phone. Hyejoo curses under her breath followed by a scowl after her character dies only 3 minutes into the game. 

Chaewon sighs and begins to wonder if this was really worth her time. 

30 minutes have passed since they started and they haven’t got much work done. Chaewon would try her best to explain the lesson but would only be met with a blank stare. 

Don’t get her wrong, Hyejoo admits that Chaewon explains the lesson far better than her professor but it’s hard to focus when she has been noticing how the blonde is fidgety like a chihuahua whenever she’d look at her. Like she was going to kill Chaewon or something. 

_ Probably because she’s still not over about what happened.  _ Hyejoo thinks. She needs to break the ice or else there's no way she can continue learning like this. Her pea sized brain is getting too distracted with her small movements.

“So… do you get it now?” Chaewon asks waringly. The stare Hyejoo was giving her was making her feel uneasy. She was never too sure if she was glaring or that was just her normal face. There really was no difference.

“Hey, you know it’s okay. I'm not mad or anything” 

“Huh?” 

“About yesterday. When you smack cam’d me in the face” Hyejoo motions her arm, mimicking the spike. 

Chaewon flushes red and scratches her cheek, “Oh… right. Sorry about that.” 

She sees Hyejoos lip curve up into a smile. “It’s alright. Although I swear you could’ve knocked out my remaining brain cells I have left.” 

The blonde breaks out into a fit of giggles and Hyejoos smile widens at this. It was nice to see her finally relaxing around her. 

“I know our first impression of each other isn’t that great, but it would be great if you could just… teach me without feeling uncomfortable.” 

Chaewons giggle died down but a smile remained on her face. “Alright. Let’s get back to work then?” 

Hyejoos smile immediately drops and her bottom lip juts out into a pout. If this was any other situation, Chaewon would’ve said it was cute. But she decides to keep that to herself. 

Groaning pain at the thought of studying, Hyejoo gives in. “I guess…” 

The rest of their session went smoothly with only minor hiccups of Hyejoo slamming her head down, complaining how her brain hurts or finding an excuse to go to the bathroom to avoid answering Chaewons questions about the work, which of course Chaewon didn’t allow after the third time.

By the time Chaewon decided to end their session, which Hyejoo quietly cheered in her seat and slumped over the desk, it was already 5pm. That means basketball practice was over since Hyejoo just received a text from Jungeun. 

[Gay Circus]

**Jungeun:** Hey nerd are you still in the library? Let’s meet up in front of the school and we’ll go play in the park near the school

Hyejoo smiled and quickly sent a reply and put her phone into her pocket before shoving her journals into her bag. 

Putting her earphones into her ears, Chaewon gathered her books and started to walk away towards the exit.  That is until she heard the other girl call out for her. 

“Hey wait up!” 

Chaewon stopped in her tracks and saw Hyejoo jogging up next to her. She never realized how tall the other girl was until she actually took a good look at her and it just made her feel more intimidated. 

She reluctantly agrees to go together and they begin to start walking with Hyejoo in the lead and Chaewon right next to her.

“So how long have you been playing volleyball?” Hyejoo asks, trying to spark at least a conversation. If she was going to spend the next couple of weeks with Chaewon, might as well get to know her. Just so things won’t be awkward, that’s all. 

Chaewon hummed and tilted her head in thought. The corners of Hyejoos mouth slightly went up but went unnoticed by the shorter girl. “I think since middle school. I only played for fun since my brother plays but I never had thoughts about joining the team but when we got into high school, Heejin practically begged me everyday until I joined. I guess I just started sticking around longer than I thought I would.” Chaewon glances at Hyejoo at the corner of her and realizes she’s been looking at her and giving her full attention. With the blank face Hyejoo was giving her, Chaewon began to think she was probably boring her out. 

But that was far from what she thought because Hyejoo actually thinks otherwise. Hyejoo is just constantly on her default “I’ll snap your bones” face. It’s not everyday you see someone as short as five foot and two inches be able to consistently reach over the net for a spike. 

Hyejoo nods her head. “That’s actually pretty cool. You play well, although I have never seen you play a real game.” 

Chaewon smiles, “Thank you.” It wasn’t the first time someone complimented her but even if it was just a simple compliment, it still made her happy nonetheless. So many years of people looking down at her because they assumed she wasn’t capable enough to be an outside hitter. 

But a part of her was more pleased with the fact it came from the girl next to her. Probably because she’s one of the school's most prized young athletes. 

“Maybe I can get you a ticket for our game when our season starts.” Chaewon shyly suggests. 

Hyejoos lips curved into a small smile, “Yeah, that’d be cool.”

“Chaewon!” 

The said girl turns around and brightens up to see Heejin and Jiwoo walking over to them. Heejin shoots Hyejoo a smile and waves at her who Hyejoo responds with a small bow. 

Jiwoo perks up at the sight of the other girl, “Hello there! Nice to properly meet you! I’m Jiwoo. Thanks for helping us in the morning.” 

Hyejoo nods and introduces herself in return. She stares at how bright the girl smiles like she has no problems in the world. When she thought Yerim beats the sun with her bubbly personality, this Jiwoo girl is definitely on the same level as Yerim. If they were ever in the same room Hyejoo might go blind for real. 

Hyejoo scratched her head awkwardly, feeling out of place with the three. She looks around while the three friends talk amongst each other before she sees four figures coming from the direction of the gym, carrying their duffle bag and Yerim throwing a basketball in the air. 

The four seemed to notice Hyejoo as well as they all waved at her. “Hey wolf! Let’s go! Hi Chaewon!” 

Hyejoo throws them a thumbs up and looks to Chaewon who timidly waves back at the group. “I’ll see you next time?” Hyejoo says. Chaewon nods. 

“Cool. Thanks for today.” Hyejoo smiles and runs off towards her friends who get headlocked in between Sooyoung's arms. 

Chaewon unconsciously smiled at the scene and giggled seeing Hyejoo trying to bite off Sooyoung's finger while they’re walking away. 

Both Heejin and Jiwoo raised an eyebrow before they shared a knowing look and let out a laugh, the same thought crossing their minds. Their laughter seems to gain Chaewon’s attention and tilts her head in confusion. They both waved it off saying it wasn’t anything serious. Chaewon pouts. She didn’t like it every time her friends did that.

After calming down Heejin catches Hyunjin looking her way and locks eyes. She waves at her to which the basketball player responds with a small wave before turning back around and joining her friends. 

“You know, I think Hyunjin is cute. She gives really good hugs” Heejin spoke up with a smile still plastered on her face. 

Chaewon and Jiwoo widen their eyes at her confession. It was rare for their friend to vocalize some sort of interest towards someone. Even Chaewon was shocked. 

Chaewon has watched how Heejin would constantly get confessions or love letters from admirers but would reject them politely since high school. Heejin would reason out that she doesn’t have time for that kind of stuff or she simply wasn’t interested. She was the school heartthrob and even as they entered college, her admirers didn’t die down one bit. Heejin is beautiful and anyone who’s lucky enough to have her attention must be special. 

Heejin rolls her eyes at the two. “What? Isn’t she though?” 

“I think everyone’s cute!” Jiwoo smiles. Chaewon releases a hearty laugh. 

Heejin snorts and squishes Jiwoo’s cheeks. “Of course you do. Lets go, I’m craving for something sweet at that cafe down the road.” 

Linking their arms together, Heejin drags both Jiwoo and Chaewon towards the entrance of the school, leading them to their destination. 

While they were walking down the road Chaewon could see from a distance the five girls playing at the single hoop court. Her lips curved upwards to see laughter erupt from all of them after Sooyoung attempted to do a lay up only for the ball to hit under the rim and straight back into her face. 

One laugh in particular stood out to her the most. With the way her eyes turn into small crescents, her nose wrinkling up and flashing a gummy smile. She would never expect someone like her to have a squeaky yet unique laugh. It was… cute. 

Maybe Hyejoo really isn’t that bad as she seems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one:  
> Absolutely no one:  
> Hyejoo: cool. 
> 
> so college started again and I keep forgetting this fic exists lol and aha haa is that 2jin I see?  
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter, please leave comments below :]  
> twt: httphyewonz


	9. Ch. 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another day of tutoring but it's cut short due to the gods having beef up in the clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We reached 350 kudos! thank y'all so much. So as a gift, here's an update :]  
> Enjoy!

It’s been about two weeks and a half since Chaewon has been tutoring Hyejoo and to say the least, they’ve got closer and finally warmed up to each other. They would occasionally wave at each other when they locked eyes during volleyball practice, which Chaewon would receive teasing from her friends specifically from Jinsol and Jiwoo. Sometimes Heejin would be a little shit about it.

Chaewon no longer felt scared that the taller girl would one day end her life because as it turns out Hyejoo is far from the intimidating appearance she gives off. Aside from the occasional times Hyejoo would snap at someone or have those threatening eyes when something annoyed her, she was just a little misunderstood because of her resting bitch face and rarely interacting with her classmates. It came as a surprise when she found out the latter was younger, but the way she’d watch Hyejoo whine and complain like a stubborn little kid, it makes sense.

So here they were, in their usual spot in the library. A small table in the back hidden behind two books shelves. There were a few tables surrounding them but it was almost always vacant since not many students go this far into the library. This area sort of became Chaewon and Hyejoo’s place, an unspoken agreement that this spot is their territory and meant for just the two of them. 

Chaewon was once again helping Hyejoo study for her upcoming chemistry test that’s in two days but their session wasn’t going smoothly as they hoped. Hyejoo would just let out a loud noise of exasperation before burying her face into her hands, feeling her brain cells deteriorate the more she stared at the practice problems. Retaining information was never Hyejoo’s thing. 

“Hyejoo, come on. You just have a couple of questions left.” The blonde gently pokes her with the end of her pen to which Hyejoo grunts in response. Chaewon cracks a smile at her.

She hums and quickly thinks of something to get the other girl to focus. She straightens up when she comes up with something. “Hey if you study really hard and pass the test, I’ll treat you to some food.” 

Hyejoo shoots her head up so fast that Chaewon flinches in surprise, and sees the younger's eyes full of hope. “Really?” Hyejoo never misses a chance at free food. 

Chaewon nods and brings her hand forward, a pinky outstretched. Hyejoo squinted her eyes to see any hidden lie in Chaewons eyes, but confirming she was being sincere, she hooked her pinky with hers with a toothy grin. 

The rest of their session was mostly in silence. Chaewon was reading a book she’s catching up on while Hyejoo works on the answers to the review questions and occasionally asking Chaewon for help. Minus the foot fight they would occasionally engage in which would end in Hyejoo receiving a harsh kick to her shins, everything was going a little smoother than 15 minutes ago. 

If this was the usual Hyejoo, she would be studying on the day of the test trying to cram everything into her brain. Her friends would be baffled at the sight of Hyejoo actually studying. But having someone strict like Chaewon as a tutor, who prefers being prepared ahead of time, she was forced into this routine. 

The problem with Son Hyejoo isn’t that she’s bad with her academics, it’s more that her attention span is not the best so she spends most of her time drifting off and looking around mindlessly. If something merely doesn’t interest her she pays no heed to it. If it isn’t obvious enough, chemistry does not interest her at all. 

On the other hand, if Hyejoo actually puts her mind to it, she does surprisingly well. Hyejoo just needed a little push and motivation to get her gears going and that motivation right now is free food. She’s determined that she _will_ get it in two days. Not only that, her basketball scholarship will be out the window if she doesn’t get back on the court soon. 

Hyejoo breaks out of her focus when she hears a light pattering against the window. She lifts her head up from her journal to see the sun slowly disappearing behind dark clouds and droplets of rain hitting the pavement and racing down the barrier between them. 

Chaewon was surprised and took out her phone hastily, pulling up the weather app. She gasped seeing the forecast that the rain won’t stop anytime soon and will eventually start pouring harder later tonight. 

She rises from her seat, startling the other girl sharing the table, and shoots an apologetic look towards Hyejoo. “Sorry Hyejoo, but I have to get home before the rain gets worst.” 

“Huh?” 

She didn’t receive any response from the other girl as she saw her already slinging her bag over her shoulder and heading to the exit of the library. Her tiny legs scampering towards the door in a hurry.

Hyejoo closes her books and shoves them inside her bag as well to catch up with the volleyball player. For someone so small, she covers a lot of ground so quickly. 

By the time Chaewon reaches the entrance of the school, she realizes she has nothing to protect her when her hands don't find the item she’s looking for in her bag. She curses at herself for leaving her umbrella out on the balcony back at home. 

She thought of just making a run for it but quickly backtracked and worry began to overflow her as the rain was picking up. Chaewon didn’t have a jacket that could at least do a bit of justice to help her. She internally slaps herself for wearing a skirt and a button up blouse today. 

There’s no point in moping when with each passing minute, the rain is increasingly pouring harder. She was already getting goosebumps from the wind. With a huff she took a step forward and closed one eye in anticipation for the cold rain to hit against her skin. 

But that didn’t happen when a hand reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her back under the awning. Turning her head around she was met with a frown from the taller girl. It was Hyejoo.

Chaewon tried to ignore the heat radiating from Hyejoo’s hand. It was warm to the touch, definitely better than the cold wind blowing past them. If anything Chaewon wanted to get closer to her warmth-

Pause. 

“Are you dumb thinking about running in the rain like that?” Hyejoo interrupts Chaewon from her thoughts, her eyebrows furrowed on her face. Hyejoo releases her grip which makes Chaewon slightly disappointed but obviously the other girl doesn’t need to know that. 

Chaewon watches Hyejoo rummage through her backpack before pulling out a gray umbrella and a jacket. She zips her bag close and holds the items out in front of her. They stared at each other for a moment and Hyejoo raised an eyebrow when Chaewon showed no signs of moving to get the items being handed to her. 

“What? Take it.” 

Chaewon looked at her surprised and gaped her mouth open. “But… don’t you need it? You’ll get sick.” 

Hyejoo rolls her eyes before her empty hand reaches to take Chaewon’s hand and puts the umbrella in the smaller girl's hand. She then unzips her gray jacket and throws it over Chaewon’s shoulders, pulling the hood over her small head. 

Chaewon breath hitch at the close proximity, feeling the blood rushing to her face. She concludes it’s because of the cold. I mean it was partially the truth. Totally not because of the taller girl. But then again it’s not everyday someone comes and takes care of you like this, let alone someone you just recently met. Chivalry isn’t dead after all. 

Once Hyejoo stepped back to put space between them, Chaewon opened her mouth to speak but was cut off when Hyejoo placed a hand in front of her face. 

“Nope. I live close by to the school and I assume you live far so you probably need it more than me.” 

Chaewon purses her lips together. Hyejoo was kind of right. She needed to take a bus to get home which was 30 minutes away from the school. But she still couldn’t hide the guilt for taking her umbrella when she knew Hyejoo would end up soaking wet in the rain. 

Hyejoo probably read her thoughts because her lips curve up into a small smile and pokes her forehead. “Hey, it’s alright. Compared to you, my clothes can protect me well enough.” She emphasizes that by pulling at her clothes. She was wearing jeans and a black and white windbreaker. To top it off, she was wearing a black cap. 

Chaewon was about to speak but was once again cut off by the loud booming in the sky and a flash of light dancing between the clouds. God is the world against her from speaking or something?

“Wow, wonder what’s the tea going up in there.” Hyejoo says nonchalantly, staring up at the sky. Her smile widens when she hears Chaewon giggling behind her hand. 

“I’ll be going now. Get home dry and safely, Chaewon.” Hyejoo pats her head, covered by her jacket hoodie. She pulls the hoodie of her windbreaker and speeds off in the rain, water splashing behind her. 

Rolling her eyes at her retreating figure, a smile plastered on Chaewons face. There was no way she was going to win against Hyejoo’s stubborn self once she made a decision. She slips her arms into the sleeves of Hyejoo’s jacket, a little bit too big for her frame but nice and cozy. Opening the umbrella that was lent to her, she began fast walking to the bus stop. 

On her way there she couldn’t stop thinking about one particular person, who has been occupying her thoughts at random times lately.

Chaewon unconsciously smiles, not realizing how big her smile is getting. The more she spends time with the younger girl, the more she realizes how good of a person she is. Yerims description of Hyejoo was starting to be proven. She was kind and gentleman-like. If you look past her intimidating appearance and her default cold expression, that makes her resemble a wolf, she’s not that scary. And if she was being honest with herself, Chaewon finds Hyejoo quite charming. 

Something Yerim seemed to miss telling Chae won though, was that Hyejoo is warm. Chaewon stared at her hand where Hyejoo grabbed before she was about to run out into the rain. 

Hyejoo is very warm, indeed.

  
  
  


Once Hyejoo arrives home she’s soaking wet. She scowls a bit at how her windbreaker didn’t last long before rain started to seep through the seams. She threw her wet shoes off by the door before making a run up the stairs, brushing off her mother's complaints of making a mess on the floor and questioning about her missing umbrella. 

Thankfully her sister isn’t home so she makes it into her room without anymore interrogation. Her sister would have a field day knowing why she came home soaking to the bone. 

Throwing her bookbag on the floor, not caring it'll leave a wet spot on the carpet, and begins to peel off her jacket and take off her cap. 

She never liked the rain. The worst feeling in the world was wet clothes sticking onto her skin, but that’s what she gets for trying to be nice and give her jacket and umbrella to a cute girl. 

Wait. 

She gave her jacket and umbrella to a cute girl. 

Said cute girl is using her umbrella and is wearing her jacket. 

Cute girl in her jacket. 

Cute girl. 

Chaewon. Cute.

Hyejoo lets out an indistinguishable noise and feels her head explode at this realization. Feeling her face heat up, the cold on her cheeks all of the sudden gone. She can’t believe she had the courage to pull that off. If she told the group chat, they wouldn’t believe her. Her awkward ass is shaking right now. 

But the memory of Chaewon in her jacket brought a small to her face. She even felt giddy. What the fuck is happening to her. What is this feeling and why does it make her act like a loser. 

She began to hop around in place, unsure what to do with this weird feeling in her chest. Is it the cold? It's probably the cold getting to her. She should probably go--

“Achoo!” 

Hyejoo rubs her nose and feels a shiver run down her body. Yeah maybe she needs to go take a shower. 

  
  


The next day during morning practice, Chaewon could see Hyejoo sneezing into her arm by the sidelines. It was obvious she caught a cold overnight based on her disheveled look for today. Hair sticking out in awkward places, wearing an oversized jacket and wearing gray sweatpants. It was like she just got out of bed and didn’t put the effort to look decently presentable. 

Chaewon giggles and shakes her head. Disappointed? Yes. Surprised? Nope, not really. Picking up a ball off the ground and bouncing it a few times before calling out to the sick girl. Once she got the girls attention, she sent the ball flying in her direction, aimed at the wall next to her face. She breaks out in a loud laugh when Hyejoo cowers down and groans realizing the blonde was messing with her once again before throwing the ball back. 

Another thing Chaewon notes is that, despite Hyejoo's supposedly cool character, she can be a fool.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gay little chaewon go brrrrrrr.  
> Gay little hyejoo go aaaaaaa.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter, lately i've been unsure of how I want to execute this story and if it's good enough to even continue this story ;;  
> Please let me know if the pacing of this story is alright and if you think the story is flowing well cause I'm not sure if i'm doing okay.  
> Also as you an tell i have the inability to write fluff because i cringe at myself, so instead i replace it with crack. forgive me for i cant take shit seriously LMFAO. 
> 
> College is a pain in the ass. I hate it here. 
> 
> follow me on twitter: @httphyewonz


	10. Ch. 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's an eventful day. Hyejoo and Chaewon hang out after Hyejoo's chemistry test. Did she pass? Maybe. Maybe not. But that doesn't matter when you get to spend time with your tutor without all the textbooks and study notes around you and a little kid kind of pries into your love life. Fuck them kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I forget I write stories. 
> 
> ALSO THANK YOU FOR 410 KUDOS! I appreciate your love and support!

Hyejoo lets out a huff and brushes her hair back before scanning the gym, double checking if everything is set for morning practice. Volleyball nets? Check. Cart? Check. Water jugs? Cold as fuck. Floor cleaned? Shinier than the bald spot peeking from Sooyoung's hair. 

She smiles and nods to herself, satisfied with her work. Although she’s still not happy about the current situation, she still puts in effort to her “punishment”. Even Coach Park showed her appreciation for her hard work by giving the basketball player a donut before practice started a few days ago. 

Checking her watch to see that she still has a few minutes to spare, she takes out the folded chemistry review paper she kept in her pocket and decides she’ll use the remaining time to study. The test was today and in about 2 hours. 

After volleyball practice, which usually lasts an hour and a half long, she has 30 minutes of free time to study before her boring chemistry class. 

Usually Hyejoo would only study 15 minutes before the class but when Chaewon made that bet a few days ago, she made sure she studied. She’s not going to miss a chance on free food. 

She even studied last night which brought a shock to her older sister when she came into her room before 11pm to remind her to not be on her computer for too long, only to see the younger girl not smashing her keyboard but surrounded by opened textbooks and notecards. 

Hyejoo is now leaning against a wall, one foot perched up, and reading off her review sheet, occasionally looking at her notecard if she’s unsure about the answer. 

She jumps when she meets a pair of eyes shining with mischief peeking behind her paper. Hyejoo puts the paper down to see Chaewon, hair tied in a high ponytail, leaning forward a bit with her hands behind her back. 

“Oh what’s this? Son Hyejoo studying on her own will?” Chaewon gasps, her eyebrows raised in fake shock and a corner of her mouth twitching up into a playful grin.

Hyejoo snorts and rolls her eyes. She rolls up the paper before lightly hitting Chaewon on the head. Chaewon pouts and rubs the area where Hyejoo hit her. 

“Just know I’m doing this for food. I’m one hundred percent positive I’ll pass today's exam.” Hyejoo smirks and crosses her arms, puffing her chest a little bit, making Chaewon smirk. 

“Really now?” the blonde challenges.

“Park Chaewon, stop flirting with water girl and let’s practice!” 

Chaewon jumps in surprise and turns around to see Yeojin snickering behind her hand. Feeling heat rise up to her cheeks, she answers back, “I’m not flirting!” 

Hyejoo was amused by the scene and smiled. She couldn’t help but feel something stir in her chest a little at the thought of the smaller girl flirting with her. I mean, it’s not every day a pretty girl flirts with you. Actually scratch that. If you’re a star basketball player, there are bound to be people lining up for your attention. But recently someone has been slowly cutting in line and gaining her attention faster than the rest. 

Hyejoo waves at the blonde and watches her run to the rest of her team for practice. She folds the paper and puts it back into her pocket and walks around the gym, continuing her so-called “dog duties”, muttering to herself over the review. 

She just wanted the day to be over so she can take the damn test already and shove her score in Chaewon’s face because, for once, she feels confident about passing it

Hyejoo bends down to pick up a stray ball and flinches when another one comes hurling right in front of her, hitting the wall and landing onto the ground with a soft thud. Turning her head in the direction the ball came from, she’s met with the same familiar head of blonde hair giving her a cheeky grin. 

Shaking her head, Hyejoo tosses the ball already in her hand at Chaewon who receives it with ease on her forearms, bouncing it in the air and catching it with her hands. 

“Thanks, water girl!” Chaewon playfully says before letting out a lighthearted laugh.

Hyejoo scoffs and can’t help but smile along. Just for that, she’s going to show off once she passes her test today. Gathering up volleyballs in her arms, she takes a quick glance in Chaewon’s direction. 

Plus it wouldn’t hurt to see the other girl smile again.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Chaewon releases a tired sigh, stepping into the hallway. Luckily this was her last class of the day and her professor decided to end class a couple minutes earlier than usual. She was getting bored with every passing minute and almost,  _ almost,  _ walked out the classroom but her “ _ good _ soul” could never bring herself to do that. 

As much as she never liked going to school, she tries her best not to miss any classes. If she did, her brother would nag her about it and go on one of his spiel about getting a good job and she does not have the time and energy for that. 

Shuffling through her bag, she takes out her phone and opens up the messaging app, replying to her teammates and Yerim before sending Hyejoo a text. 

**_princess:_ ** _ I got out of class early. ^-^ _

**_big bitch:_ ** _ great! You can end my misery by stopping by my class and gouging my eyes out <3 _

**_princess:_ ** _ yuck why are you so fucking detestable _

**_big bitch:_ ** _ just like your freestyle dance.  _

Chaewon gaped her mouth open. Embarrassment fills up her entire body and she facepalms when she realizes she sometimes has the random urge to start popping during practice in front of her friends. Out in the open where Hyejoo can see her. 

**_princess:_ ** _ we don’t speak about that  _

**_big bitch:_ ** _ ;> _

**_princess:_ ** _ So how long till your class ends?  _

Chaewon watches the bubble of three dots appear, signaling the other girl is typing, but then it disappears. Then it reappears again and a text is finally sent. 

**_big bitch:_ ** _ yes _

Chaewon furrows her eyebrows at the message. What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Despite the cool nature Hyejoo radiates she can be weird at times. A perfect way to describe Hyejoo, in Choi Yerim’s words, is those cakes decorated in black frosting but when you slice into the cake, it’s just a rainbow layered cake Looks dark on the outside but actually has a bright personality, and “very fucking gay”, according to Jungeun. That’s exactly Son Hyejoo. 

She begins typing out her response, tapping her fingers on the screen until a warm breath of wind blows directly into her ear, and she lets out a surprised squeal. 

“Boo.” 

Covering the ear that was attacked, Chaewon turns around to see Hyejoo grinning from ear to ear. That one grin that made her eyes disappear, nose scrunch, and gums slightly appear. Yes, that cute dorky grin she makes when she gets really happy. (A/N: I'm dumby whipped for that smile fyi.)

“Yo!” Hyejoo raises one hand in a small wave like the little shit she is, acting as if she didn’t just give the smaller girl a heart palpitation.

Still going through the adrenaline of aftershocks, Chaewon smacks Hyejoo’s shoulder followed by a bunch more hits. The raven haired girl, who seems to be prone to being Chaewon's target nowadays, in a futile attempt, tries to stop the girl's abuse.

“What the heck is wrong with you!?” 

Hyejoo let out a couple of giggles, still trying to protect herself. Chaewon’s hits feel more like a tickle to her which is kind of ironic considering how the small volleyball player has a nasty spike that almost rocked her world. (A/N: Booya. Stan Red Velvet) 

Once Hyejoo manages to get hold of Chaewon's wrist, she grins and pulls the girl closer, shocking her in the process as Chaewon feels herself being wrapped. Chaewon’s brain goes haywire when she realizes. Hyejoo is hugging her. 

The taller girl lays her head on top of Chaewon’s while rubbing circles on her back that sends shivers up her spine but is comforting nonetheless. Curse Hyejoo for being hug-sized and slowly melting in her embrace.

“I’m sorry, forgive me,” Hyejoo coos in a teasing tone. Chaewon looks up and glares at the younger girl. She smiles at her before she finally releases Chaewon from the hug. 

“I thought you were in class?” Chaewon asks, fixing her hair. 

Hyejoo hums and shrugs, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her sweatpants. “I mean yeah, I was.” 

Chaewon raises an eyebrow, “So… why aren’t you in class?” 

Hyejoo hums again. Then a grin breaks out on her face and throws an arm over Chaewon’s shoulder, laughing as Chaewon struggles underneath her arm. “Because I want to keep my favorite unnie company!” 

Hyejoo lets out a strangled groan when she feels someone jab her rib. Okay, yeah, that one definitely hurt. “Spare me! This is abuse!” 

“Why aren’t you in class, Son Hyejoo,” Chaewon says sternly, her eyes glaring into Hyejoo’s eyes. 

Hyejoo whines and crosses her arms. “I just got bored! The professor kept going off topic and started talking about how does birds have sex because some student asked out of nowhere. In a fucking calculus class, like what the fuck? And he apparently knew the answer to it.” Chaewon snorts and covers her mouth to stifle a laugh. 

“And the guy two seats down next to me farted and it spread so fast it was like a gas chamber in there.” 

Chaewon's face cringes and she mumbles about how gross men are before bursting out into laughter at Hyejoo mimicking vomiting noises.

“I also didn’t want you to wait too long for me.” 

Chaewon’s laughter dies down when the words process into her head. It was oddly sweet coming from the girl. Usually Hyejoo would tease her and say something to get on her nerves. So this was new to her that she couldn’t help but want to tease the girl seeing her face cringing.

Chaewon smirks and pokes Hyejoo’s cheek that begins to tint pink. “Aww, how precious. Yerim is right about how you really are just a softie and a ‘baby wolf’ as they say.” 

Hyejoo swats her finger away and scowls. “As if Yerim isn’t just older than me by a couple of months and always acts like a hyperactive child!” 

Chaewon giggles until she remembers something. “Oh! How’d your test go?” 

Hyejoo scowl disappears and is immediately replaced by her dorky grin. She puffs out her chest with pride. “I’m glad you asked, because I did great!” 

“Yay!” Chaewon claps excitedly and extends out her hand. “Let me see your grade!” 

Hyejoo lets one strap of her backpack slip off her arm and she swings it over to her front so she can easily open her bag without removing it. She rummages through her folder and takes out folded sheets of paper stapled together and zips up her bag and puts it on properly. 

Hyejoo unfolds the paper and glances at it before she stares at Chaewon. Silence passes them for a couple of seconds until her blank face turns into another grin. “You owe me food!” 

“Okay, well, let me see it.” Chaewon shakes her outstretched hand, motioning her to hand the paper.

But Hyejoo makes no movement to give it to her. She’s just… simply standing there and looking down at the smaller girl with an expressionless face. 

Chaewon tilts her head. Why isn’t she giving it to her? Furrowing her eyebrows, she reaches to grab the paper in Hyejoo’s hand only to be swatted away. 

“Ow! Wh-” She goes for it again only for her hand to be smacked away again. A third attempt. Smack. Fourth attempt. Smack. Now the paper is getting farther away with every reach.

Everytime Chaewon goes to grab the paper, the owner would take a step back and stretch her arm away from Chaewon’s grasp to create distance. 

It’s starting to get more irritating by the minute and Chaewon notices that they were attracting attention from other students in the hallway. The confused looks on their face to see the commotion between the schools spiker and the well-known shooting guard and why Chaewon has murderous intent in her eyes. 

The reason being is that Chaewon is close to murdering Hyejoo for using her height to her advantage. The taller girl holds up the folded paper in the air far from her reach. Her jumping does not help as the basketball player would just push her down by the shoulders. Curse Hyejoo for being a long bitch! 

“Hyejoo, just give me the test!” 

“You owe me food!” 

“What’s your source?” 

“Bro just trust me!” 

“Motherfucker, show me your grade!” 

“Oh no, I will eat this paper right now if you don’t give me food!” 

**_PAK_ **

Time seems to repeat itself as Hyejoo has no time to react when a hand comes swinging down and slamming into her face, pushing her down. Hyejoo yells and falls on the ground from the hard hit and covers her face in pain. It’s the repeat of the incident from their first meeting. The eventful day of Hyejoo getting accidentally hit in the face by a ball. Except this time there was no ball and this was on purpose. 

Hyejoo curls into a fetal position on the ground because holy shit why is Chaewon so strong for such a tiny body. 

She can feel Chaewon step over her body and pick up the fallen paper next to her with a small  _ “assa!” _ . Hyejoo groans, waiting for the inevitable, curling in herself even more. 

Chaewon smiles when she finally wins over the other girl. Although she feels bad at swinging at her again, she had no choice but to take drastic measures. She unfolds the paper and her eyes scan across it. 

Her mouth drops and she turns to look down at the girl who is peeking at her from between her fingers. 

“You got a 76!” Chaewon states out. Its not passing but almost. 

Hyejoo groans and buries her face in her hands, preparing herself for the scolding. “I tried my best! I almost passed! I just needed a couple more points” Hyejoo pouts. 

Chaewon softens at the sight of the other girl who almost resembles a beaten up puppy when she sits up. Her head down and her lips jutting out. It makes sense where ‘baby wolf’ came from because that's exactly what she looks like.

She crouches down to be within eye level with the younger girl. Hyejoo still keeps her eyes on the floor. 

“Hey.” Chaewon pokes Hyejoo’s cheek, who just lets out a tiny ‘hmph’. “You didn’t pass, but considering how you’ve been working hard these past few weeks and your grades are getting better, I’ll still treat you to food. Does that sound good?” 

Although she was kind of hoping Hyejoo passes another exam this time, she definitely sees the improvement. Even if Hyejoo constantly complained during their time together studying, once Hyejoo became focused, she actually does pretty well. 

Chaewon tries her best to contain her smile from widening when Hyejoo shoots her head up and looks at her with excitement. Her eyes are almost sparking and her pouting turns into a wide smile. 

“Really?!” the younger girl exclaims like an excited child getting an entire bag of candy. When Chaewon nods, she lets out a high pitched cheer that made the blonde girl laugh. 

Chaewon helps Hyejoo get back on her feet and waits for her to dust off any dirt on her pants. Before she can ask where Hyejoo wants to go, she’s already being pulled towards the exit of the school. 

“Let’s go to my favorite restaurant!” 

  
  


* * *

Hyejoo lets out a satisfied noise and leans back in her chair. She stretches out her arms above her head before letting her hands fall to rub circles on her satisfied stomach. She was stuffed and it felt nice to come to her restaurant after a while. 

Chaewon snorts at how the girl sitting across from her in their shared booth looks like an old hag and comments on how Hyejoo is sitting unladylike. The girl simply responds with a loud burp that erupts both of them in a fit of laughter.

When they left the school perimeters, Hyejoo talked non stop about a really good tteokbokki restaurant down the road. Chaewon, who absolutely loves tteokbokki, was excited and knowing how Hyejoo loves food, she trusted her words. 

She assumed Hyejoo was a regular at this restaurant because the moment they set foot through the door, the majority of the staff members greeted her. One of them even went to the table where they are currently sitting and wiped it down for Hyejoo. This table was probably the main table Hyejoo eats at. 

She would always come here with her older sister after every win for their games or just to hang out. But since her sister has been busy nowadays, they rarely found the time to come here. 

As a matter of fact, this place holds a special place in her heart and only chooses to eat at this restaurant with her only sister. She barely even brings Yerim or Hyunjin, her childhood friends, with her. Yet she’s unsure why she decided to bring Chaewon here. She probably just misses the food.

After Chaewon pays for the meal, the two sit for a while to digest the amount of food they just consumed and mindlessly talk about whatever comes to mind. Conversations came easily to them as they seemed to have similar interests. To others, they would think they’ve been friends their entire life with the way they playfully swing at each other but who would’ve thought the two managed to clique so well in a span of almost 3 weeks. 

In all honesty, Chaewon loves these moments she has with the other girl. No books or pens scattered around them and getting a headache from studying. They rarely ever hang out outside of school because Chaewon has to study at home right after. It’s not easy being a science major while also balancing volleyball. Likewise, after their sessions Hyejoo would go play basketball with her friends to make up for her missed practices. 

But when these moments do come, she enjoys them to the fullest. 

Hyejoo looks out the window and checks the time on her watch. The sky is painted in light hues of red and orange and blues, indicating the sun is almost about to set to let night take over the sky. It’s only just a few hours before it turns dark, and she doesn’t have any plans on going home yet. She wants to spend a little bit longer with the other girl. 

“Chaewon, let’s go get ice cream.” Hyejoo says. It’s more of a statement than a question. 

Chaewon hums and looks at the time on her phone. She should be home soon but considering her brother is out of town for a few days, she makes the decision she could go home a bit late. Usually at this time, she would already have showered and changed into fresh clothes. But it’s a Friday anyways, so she can hold off on her homework for tomorrow. Will she regret it? Maybe. But it’s been a while since she went out and had fun.

With a nod, Chae won standing up, “Yeah, sure. Let’s go!”

Hyejoo brightens up and swings her bag over her shoulders and gets hold of Chaewon’s wrist again. This time she isn’t dragging her since Chaewon follows right behind her.

Hyejoo shouts farewell to the staff members who respond back with a “come back again with your cute friend!” which makes Chaewon blush a little. 

Once they leave the restaurant, they unconsciously match each other's pace. No one was in front of the other. Hyejoo’s hand that was once holding her wrist loosens its grip before unconsciously sliding to hold one of Chaewon’s fingers, to which the smaller girl giggles and happily adjusts her hand to interlace all their fingers together. 

Anyone who looked at them would assume they were a couple. 

Before, Chaewon would get surprised whenever Hyejoo would unconsciously grab her hand or the end of her sleeve. She eventually learned from Yerim that Hyejoo always likes to hold onto people. It’s a habit that the younger girl apparently has had since they were still kids. 

It’s an interesting and cute detail about Hyejoo. Who knew that the oh-so “intimidating” basketball player, who wouldn’t hesitate to break anyone's legs, actually loves affection? 

But now that they have the time to hang out outside of school, where dumbass kids aren’t reporting live from their business to start rumors, she accepts the girl's hand without hesitation.Despite actually disliking physical affection, it started to change especially when your friends with Jinsol and Jiwoo, you learn to get used to hand holding. Luckily she’s grown used to having her hand being occupied with Hyejoos. 

Hyejoo is very much aware of her habit. She’s done it so many times that she lost count because of how much she does it without realizing. Even her crackhead friends would lightheartedly groan whenever they end up being the receiving end and hook her arm or hold at least one of their fingers. But they let it happen anyways because Hyejoo is just a cute little emo child and it’s fun to tease her.

Nowadays, whenever Hyejoo is around the blonde, her urge to hold onto someone's hand intensifies. She always wants to hold Chaewons hand and she’s glad the other girl doesn’t mind at all when she does.

To be honest, everytime Hyejoo holds Chaewon’s hand, she would feel something stir inside her. But she pays no mind to it, assuming it's just the excitement of hanging out and having fun. 

They’re casually swinging their hands together while walking towards the ice cream truck parked close by. Hyejoo paid for their ice cream, since Chaewon paid for their food a while ago, and heads to the nearby park and sits down on one of the benches.. 

“You know, I never really understood why you’re helping the volleyball team,” Chaewon speaks up after a couple of bites of her ice cream. She only knew Hyejoo was failing her chemistry class which is why Yerim hit her up in the first place. But why help the volleyball team? They were fine before Hyejoo came around, though they’re glad they don’t have to carry those damn heavy ass poles. Compared to 3 girls carrying a metal pole, Hyejoo’s strength could do it by herself without breaking a sweat.

Hyejoo grumbles. She’s still bitter about her punishment. Sure she doesn’t mind setting up the volleyball nets every morning, but she prefers not waking up early. She really misses practicing with her team after school. At least she makes up for it by playing with Hyunjin, Yerim, Sooyoung, and Jungeun at the park. She still needs to sharpen up in time for nationals. 

“Coach Jung is just cold blooded. Making us suffer in the most absurd ways. Wish she was more like Coach Park or Coach Yoon,” Hyejoo scowls. 

Chaewon smirks and raises an eyebrow, “You clearly have not seen Coach Park at her peak. She’s a lot worse than Coach Jung. I can tell you that.”

Hyejoo rolls her eyes and scoffs, “Whatever. Coach Jung is just ruthless. She’s so small yet so much pure evil in her body is just,” She visibly shudders at the thought. “Just thinking about all the punishments she gives us during practice if we airball or do a bad pass is just… bleeeh.” Chaewon could only giggle and Hyejoo joined a few seconds after. 

Their ice cream is long gone and orange dominates the skies and reflects off onto some of the buildings. Chaewon gasps at the sight before her and stands up quickly, her hand slipping out of Hyejoo’s, much to the latter’s dismay. 

“Ah, I’ve got to get a picture of this! It’s gorgeous, Hyejoo!” The small girl practically explodes with excitement and, honestly, it’s endearing to watch Hyejoo. Sometimes she couldn’t believe the volleyball player was only a year older than her when the majority of the time she acts like the younger one between them.

Hyejoo never understood the excitement of a sunset. Ironically, she preferred sunrises instead. In the months of no school, there were countless times Hyejoo would watch the sun rise up behind the horizon because she’d spent the entire night playing games.

Hyejoo follows the other girl and stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jacket. Chaewon has now moved on to taking selfies, and Hyejoo has to admit she looks stunning. There’s no point in denying that. Even the girl in question knows how good looking she is. What a conceited little gremlin. 

As time is passing by, they’re falling into the peak of golden hour and the light hits Chaewon in all the right places that she’s literally glowing. Hyejoo can’t seem to take her eyes off of her. 

She’s broken out of her trance when she feels a tug on the back of her jacket, and turns to see a young girl staring up at her with big curious eyes.

Hyejoo tilts her head, “Uh, hey, kid. Do you need something?”

The girl, who looked about 8 years old, gives a tiny shake of her head before speaking with enthusiastic vigor. “I- I just wanted to tell you that your girlfriend is  _ really _ pretty. Like, she could be a princess!”

Hyejoo stands there with her jaw dropped for a second, no thoughts, head empty. Girlfriend? What girlfriend? If she had a girlfriend, then why has no one told her? 

“Excuse me?"

The girl frowns at her response and puffs out her cheeks. She points behind Hyejoo, directly at  _ Chaewon _ . “That girl! Your girlfriend!” The kid is basically screaming at this point. 

With widened eyes, Hyejoo takes a quick glance behind her, making sure Chaewon remains oblivious, before squatting on the ground to be eye level with the little girl. “Well, sorry to disappoint, but she’s not my girlfriend.”

For some reason the words taste bitter on her tongue. 

“Oh.”A look of sadness covers the little girl's face. Is she really that bummed that Hyejoo is single? But not even a few seconds later, she smiles a big toothy grin. “Well, you should ask her, unnie! You’re pretty too, so I’m sure she will be your girlfriend! Fighting!”

With that, the little girl gives a vigorous nod, a couple of face pats to Hyejoo’s cheeks (which felt more like a slap) before running off. Hyejoo feels her face heat up and her mouth go dry. 

Now what the hell was that? Chaewon as her girlfriend? Of course that would never happen. Chaewon is smart, one of the top in her grade, got her life ahead of her already and is talented. Meanwhile Hyejoo is just… Hyejoo. Some girl who plays basketball who is mediocre with academics. The chances of them together is very little… but never zero. 

But she has to admit the fact that an innocent and clueless child thought they were dating makes her feel some sort of way. Hmm. Maybe… just maybe. 

“Hyejoo!”

Hyejoo jumps back up into a standing position, turning around to face the girl that is plaguing her thoughts. “Ah, sorry, this kid needed some directions to get back to the bus stop.” She lies. 

“Oh.” Chaewon looks past her shoulder at the little girl skipping along the sidewalk carrying a pinwheel. “Should we follow just in case she gets lost?”

“Ah, no! I mean—It’s okay.” Hyejoo glances back to see the little girl now throwing hands at another kid for breaking her pinwheel. “I made sure she’d be fine.” Hyejoo gives a nervous chuckle. Who’s child is this...

Chaewon then latches onto her arm that catches Hyejoo by surprise, but she realizes what’s happening when Chaewon’s other hand is holding her phone out, the camera on selfie mode. 

“Let’s take a picture together!” 

Hyejoo looks at the camera awkwardly. She rarely takes pictures of herself and if she ever does, they always turn out looking wack so she just doesn’t take pictures of herself in general. Yerim would try to teach her some tips in the art of selfies but, in Hyejoo’s words, was just “not photogenic enough” like Yerim.

Hyejoo instinctively puts up a peace sign, shoots a closed lip smile and watches Chaewon click away while also changing facial expressions. She stares at her from the phone and unconsciously turns her head to look directly down at Chaewon, her attention still looking at the camera. 

The little girl is right about Chaewon being pretty. She seriously does look like she belongs in a palace. She’s stunning and looking at her this closely, Hyejoo is able to see her features well. No flaws to be seen. Seeing Chaewon smile naturally brings a smile to Hyejoo’s face. 

Her breath hitches when Chaewon turns to look up at her and flashes her signature lopsided smile. She didn’t realize how close she was to the other girl when her eyes automatically looked at her lips. 

Hyejoo immediately snaps out of it, heat rising up to her face. What the fuck? 

“Hyejoo, look! You look constipated in this one!” Hyejoo flinches when a phone blocks her vision between her and the blonde. Instead, she’s looking at a photo they just took and to be quite frank… she does look constipated. Her face is scrunched up in a weird way because the sun was directly hitting her eyes.

Hyejoo snorts and lets out a loud laugh. Of course she looks weird in pictures. It wasn’t the first time she closely resembled the Grinch. “You should make that your wallpaper.” She means it as a joke, but a tiny part of her wishes that Chaewon actually would. But she doesn’t want to admit that to the other girl or else she wouldn’t hear the end of it.

“Maybe I should, but I already made this one my wallpaper.” Chaewon turns off her phone and turns it back on to show Hyejoo the lockscreen. Hyejoo’s eyes widen at the wallpaper. It’s one of the many pictures they recently took but this specific picture catches her by surprise. 

The sunset had given them a nice glow on their skin. It wasn’t as vibrant but the colors were still present. Chaewon had one eye closed into a wink and was tilting her head, almost leaning her head onto the taller girl's shoulder. Hyejoo on the other hand… wasn’t looking at the camera but at the blonde, a smile on her face. 

Hyejoo instantly blushes seeing that Chaewon captured the moment she was staring and smiling at her, and she wants to delete that picture out of embarrassment. 

“Don’t we look cute? It was the only picture you were smiling in and didn’t look constipated.” Chaewon says mischievously which earns a light shove on her shoulder by the taller girl.

“Plus,” Chaewon brushes her blonde locks over her shoulder, “I think I look good.” She adds with a grin on her face, putting her hand shaped into a L under her chin. 

Hyejoo barks out a laugh. Here she goes again, being a narcissist. “Yeah, sure, whatever, Miss I-Love-Myself.” She puts her hand on Chaewon’s face before gently pushing her head back, earning a yelp from the girl. 

“Anyway, come on. It’s getting dark so we better head home,” Hyejoo says, tilting her head towards the direction of the bus stops.

Chaewon hums in agreement and falls into step beside her. Almost as natural as breathing, their hands find their way to each other and they interlock their fingers.

Hyejoo can feel the tips of her ears growing warm once again and she has to bite her lip to keep from smiling. All she can do is listen fondly as the blonde chatters on and hope that whatever rush happening inside her rib cage didn’t mean anything serious.

“The bus stop and my house is this way. Which direction is your house, Hyejoo?” Chaewon asks. She never knew where the younger girl lived. In general, they have never been to each other's house. They studied in the library anyways but they reached a point where they’d always get shushed at or almost kicked out for always talking or laughing a little too loud

“Umm.” Hyejoo looks around to examine the area. To be completely honest, they already passed the road that leads to her house and they were almost near the school. If you were to leave the school, her house was directed to the left. And she knows Chaewon goes to the right because that's where the bus stop is. 

In all honesty, she doesn’t want to leave the girl just yet so she fake coughs into her fist. “It's the same direction as you. Hyejoo lies. Gosh how many times is Hyejoo going to lie to herself. 

Chaewon tilts her head. “But shouldn’t it be around here? I always see you walking with your friends in this direction from school.” 

_ Shit. That’s right.  _ “Oh, uh… Because Hyunjin lives around here.” It technically wasn’t a lie actually. Hyunjin does live around here. Just one block over from her neighborhood is where Hyejoo’s house is, but that’s besides the point. 

Chaewon shapes her lips into a small ‘O’ and nods her head in understanding. She feels a little happy knowing Hyejoo isn’t leaving just yet. She didn’t want to part ways just yet and wants to spend a bit more time with Hyejoo just as much as the other girl wants to spend more time with her. Her grip in Hyejoo’s hand tightens and they begin swinging their arms as they walk. 

The roads are void of any light as the sun has already gone past the horizon, letting the moon have its turn in the sky. Lamp posts and lights from buildings they pass were their only source of light to make it easier for the two girls to their destination 

In just 20 minutes, Hyejoo can see the bus stop a couple feet away from them. Hyejoo frowns a little, knowing their time together will come to an end soon. Chaewon notices the change in Hyejoo’s mood and smirks. At least she knows she’s not the only one enjoying the other's presence. 

“Aw, is Hyejoo sad?” Chaewon teases and pokes Hyejoo’s round cheeks. 

Hyejoo swats it away and scoffs. “Whatever. I’ll bite your hand.” 

Chaewon giggles. She always enjoys teasing her friends, but seeing Hyejoo’s reactions is the funniest. Either she would retaliate if you really baked her biscuits or she would threaten to eat your hands if she couldn’t come up with a comeback to deny the teasing. Currently it was the latter so it egged Chaewon on to continue teasing her.

“Don’t be sad, Hyejoo. You see this pretty face everyday.” Chaewon winks and laughs when Hyejoo fakes a gag.

Hyejoo yanks her hand away from their hold and looks at Chaewon with a disgusted look. “Ew, stay away from me.” 

Chaewon whines and reaches out to grab hold of her hand again, but her attempts keep failing as the taller girl keeps turning away from her. Hyejoo’s entire back was facing Chaewon basically. 

This just opens the opportunity for Chaewon to jump onto her back. Not all the way but enough to be able to wrap one arm around Hyejoo’s neck, basically choking her, to which she starts laughing when she hears Hyejoo strangled chokes. 

“Get off me, you gremlin.” Hyejoo pulls Chaewon’s arm off of her and glares at the tiny demon innocently looking up at her. 

Chaewon bats her eyelashes at her and smiles, holding out her hand in front of the girl. “Hand.” 

“What the fuck? Am I some dog to you?” 

“Aren’t you called Wolf Hye for a reason? I mean I never took you to be a furry, but I respect you. I don’t judge.” 

“I-” Literally no words.

“We have 25 steps left until I reach the bus stop. Are you going to hold my hand or not?” 

Hyejoo stares at the hand held out in front of her and then to the bus stop that got closer while they were bickering and playing around. The raven haired groans and rolls her eyes before interlacing their fingers again. Chaewon smiles and ruffles her hair to tease her even more. 

“You’re such a gremlin, I hope you know that.” 

Chaewon shrugs and sticks her tongue out at the girl. Hyejoo can’t help but smile at her childish acts. And she’s the older one between them? What a joke. 

As they walk in silence, Hyejoo's mind drifts off. It’s been about 3 weeks since they first met and it surprised both of them and their friends on how fast they got along despite their first meeting being not your usual first meeting. Their humor matches each other and they never miss a chance to poke fun at each other. 

Hyejoo enjoys her friendship with Chaewon. 

Yes. Friend. 

They’re already standing by the bus stop where other people are waiting. Hyejoo still remains next to Chaewon, holding her hand tighter. They both smile at each other before they hear the bus drawing closer to them. 

“Ah, it’s here,” Chaewon announces as the bus slows down and stops in front of them. The people around them get up and begin falling in line for the last bus of the day. 

Hyejoo feels a bit sad inside but that feeling is gone when Chaewon fully stands in front of her with a bright smile that makes her eyes disappear. Hyejoo can’t help but smile back. 

“You know, I’m really proud of you,” Chaewon says sincerely, making Hyejoo smile wider. It’s been awhile since she heard someone say that when it comes to her academics, and hearing it coming from Chaewon makes her feel like it was worth it. 

“You could still do better though,” Chaewon smirks. 

Hyejoo immediately deflates and lets out a whine. Of course she would ruin the mood. “Yeah, whatever. I’m only getting better because I have the best tutor in the world.” 

Chaewon’s smirk disappears and is replaced with a shy smile. Her cheeks begin to heat up. To avoid the other girl from seeing her face, she wraps her arms around Hyejoo’s torso. 

Hyejoo is caught off guard by the action since rarely Chaewon has initiated a hug. Usually it was always Hyejoo but it was either to comfort the other girl after teasing her too much. Either Chaewon is embarrassed or she is thankful. Maybe both. Hyejoo laughs and returns the hug, wrapping her arms around her and bringing her closer

Chaewon breaks the hug after a couple of seconds and smiles one more time before she bids farewell and scurries off to board the bus. Luckily there’s still a seat available, and manages to sit by a window close to where Hyejoo is. 

The taller girl raises a hand to wave at Chaewon, to which she replies with a small finger heart. 

Their smiles never leave their faces as the bus begins to drive away, leaving Hyejoo alone at the stop. 

Hyejoo releases a sigh and stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jacket before looking around. She furrowed her eyebrows, unfamiliar with the area. Scratching her head, she takes out her phone and pulls up the maps application.

“Where the fuck am I…” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Henlo readers, it's been awhile. 
> 
> I finally updated and its all because I made a bet with my good pal and braincell sharer, Rifk (@itschuusdayinit, go follow her and her art acc @fishtherifk) that if I don't post this chapter, she gets to hack into my acc.  
> So everyone say thank you to Rifk or else this chapter wouldn't be up.  
> [Also! Please go support her author debutation! She wrote her first [fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27473110/chapters/67171051) and even made [fanart](https://twitter.com/fishtherifk/status/1325474671068815360?s=20) !) 
> 
> Also to make up for the very long wait, this chapter is very long compared to the others. About 6k words and it's just pure lil baby gay Hyejoo. Not gonna lie I struggle VERY much with fluff so... I'm really sorry if it's so awkward. I'm trying my best. 
> 
> Note. I'm going to try, underline TRY, my best to do updates EVERY THIRD SATURDAY OF THE MONTH, to push myself to at least work on this and get it completed. Because soon, I'll be starting a Lipsoul social media au on twitter. But if I miss an update, please don't hold it against me as I'm a very exhausted college student with very little motivation. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please leave comments down below on your thoughts, they really make me happy.  
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> twitter: @httphyewonz


	11. Ch. 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hyejoo and Chaewon go to Hyejoo's house to study. That's basically it. They're such nerds but Hyejoo gotta keep those grades up if she wants to play soon.

The sound of shoes skidding and basketballs pounding against the floor as teammates dribbles up and down the court. The gym was filled with a bunch of yelling from the team, mostly from Jungeun, the usual play maker, directing her team that's taking the offensive position. 

The basketball team was currently having a scrimmage game against each other and both teams split up to be pretty balanced with each other. Balanced as in the starting 5 was split into different teams. Jungeun being on one team, Yerim being on the second team, and Sooyoung and Hyunjin on the last team who was currently sitting down after losing to Yerim’s team. 

Unfortunately their key player was not on the court with the rest of the team but instead sitting on the benches, watching with a yearning look. The eagerness to just get up, slip on her KD’s and join them made her leg bop up and down, but with a warning glare from Coach Jung, she remains rooted in her spot. She already gave her the opportunity to even step into the gym and if she tried to push it she knew Coach Jung had a list of extreme workouts ready for her.

Hyejoo releases a sad huff. It’s been a month since Hyejoo practiced at the school gym. Which sucks because nationals are coming up and she needs to build that synergy with her teammates. Hell, the team has already started the season last week and she couldn’t face the embarrassment of the audience wondering why she's not on the court where she belongs. At least Hyejoo has full trust on her teammates because as of right now, they’re winning by 2-0. She’s confident they can hold the fort while she’s gone.

Luckily, these past 4 weeks of trying to get her grades up, thanks to the smartie pants that Chaewon is, have been going well. Bless her soul for being in the science department and just naturally good at all science subjects. Which also meant 4 weeks of setting up volleyball nets and protecting her precious face. She learned from her past mistakes from her first day and was not about to repeat that same incident.

Now that Hyejoo thinks about it, she never watched a real volleyball game. Like watching and actually paying attention to what’s going on. She’s been to her sisters' games with her parents before but usually would end up at the concession stands for the rest of the game or her attention was on her phone. 

But after watching the volleyball team practice four times a day, she’s curious how they’re like in a real game. Hopefully one day Hyejoo finds the will to watch a game of theirs soon. Maybe she’ll ask Hyunjin or Yerim to come with her. 

Hyejoo feels a vibration in the pocket of her pants and pulls out her phone to see a message sent by Chaewon. Sending her a quick reply, she picks up her bag and slings it over one of her shoulders. She bids her teammates a goodbye to which they respond back with a wave of their hands and exits out the gym doors. 

Hyejoo walks down the halls, earbuds plugged in and bobbing her head to the beat of the song as she was making her way toward the library. Ever since Chaewon became her tutor- well, they’re beyond that tutor-pupil phase now. It’s safe to consider the other girl her friend. Ever since they became friends, she grew a liking for the library now. Probably Chaewons nerdiness is rubbing off on her. 

Hyejoo mindlessly scrolls through her phone, paying little attention to her surroundings. As she was walking she stopped in her tracks hearing someone call out her name. Turning her head towards the direction of the voice, her face drops and dread washes over. Oh god, not her. 

“Hyejoo!” 

The said girl was debating whether or not to just keep walking and fucking bolt it.Pretend she never saw the girl that was quickly making her way towards her. She was about to take a step forward until she felt a weight on her back and arms wrapped around her neck, knocking the air out of her lungs.

“Oof!” 

“Where do you think you’re going?” 

Hyejoo looks over her shoulder to see the other girl smiling at her and returns with an awkward half-hearted smile. “Ah… I’m just going to meet up with a friend.”

To be very honest, she doesn’t even remember this girl's name. Yeah sure they talked a couple of times because they worked on a project together for one of their classes but Hyejoo gave no effort to learn the names in her group. 

But this one girl in specific stuck longer than the others. Not that Hyejoo asked her too but simply because this girl has a very obvious interest in the basketball player. At first, Hyejoo was fine with it and brushed it off. It’s not the first time Hyejoo experienced someone showing a very clear liking to her. At other times Hyejoo would brag about being a charmer but sometimes it becomes a little bit of a nuisance. 

Especially since this girl has been very persistent and very touchy-feely that it’s getting on Hyejoo’s nerves. Not to be mean or anything, but they had no reason to talk anymore or Hyejoo plans to be her friend or anything. They already finished their assignment, got their grade and that’s it. Plus Hyejoo thinks she’s annoying. 

“Oh? Aren’t your friends at basketball practice right now?” The girl releases her hold but brings her hand down to hold Hyejoo’s hand. 

Hyejoo winces at the contact and discreetly takes her hand away from her grasp and rubs at her nape. “Yeah, but I’m meeting another friend.” 

The girl pouts at this and releases a huff. “I see. Then I shouldn’t keep you for long I guess.”

Hyejoo internally pumps her first into the air. She nods at the girl and waves back when she starts walking away. Once the other girl is gone, Hyejoo fast walks and rounds the corner. At the same time she bumps into someone causing her to almost drop her phone on impact.

“Ahh!”  “Holy shit--” 

She looks up and realizes the person she bumped into was slightly taller than her as her face met with someone's shoulder. She squints her eyes trying to remember if she’s seen her before. She doesn’t recall ever seeing another blonde girl before. Well, Chaewon is blonde but she’s too tiny. 

“Oh hey you’re the girl who helps us in the morning!” 

Everything starts to click in place when the other girl flashes her own of her goofy grins. Oh right. The middle blocker. Hyejoo blinks for a couple seconds and awkwardly smiles. “Hi?”

A mischievous glint appeared in Jinsols eyes and Hyejoo wonders if she should fear for her life with the way she’s looking at her, “You’re the girl Chaewon li-” 

“-spiked the ball into your face!” Another voice pops out from behind Jinsol, slapping a hand over the taller girl's mouth. Hyejoo briefly remembers that loud voice as Jiwoo, one of their defense specialists. 

Hyejoo pouts at that. Seems like no one is going to forget that whole incident and will continue to remind her how she got vibe checked until the day she actually ascends to heaven or something. 

“What’s going on here- Oh, Hyejoo!” 

Hyejoo raises an eyebrow but visibly relaxes when she sees the tiny blonde she was going to see in just a few minutes. She smiles and waves at Chaewon who approached them. 

“Hey nerd.” Hyejoo greets with a toothy grin which grew even wider seeing Chaewon glare at her. 

“Are you causing trouble again, Hyejoo?” Chaewon squints and points an accusing finger at the black haired girl. 

Hyejoo raises her hands up in defense and shakes her head. She fakes crying noises and wipes a nonexistent tear from her eyes, complaining how Chaewon always thinks she starts problems, even if it's true half of the time.

Meanwhile, Jiwoo and Jinsol stand off to the side seeing the two bickering again. A sight that's nothing new to them as they often saw it during morning practice, yet it was just somewhat weird to them. It was like the Park Chaewon, who always preferred to bury her nose into a book, very antisocial and shy, had a complete 180 degree change. 

“Maybe Yeojin is right.” Jiwoo whispers to the girl next to her, a hand next to her mouth. 

Jinsol nods with a closed mouth grin, “I don't doubt it one bit. Wonder when they’ll admit it.” She then looks up and notices the two girls, who were just in front of them, disappeared. Both of them turn everywhere to trace any signs of their small friend.

“Did they just leave us.” Jiwoo asks to which Jinsol clicks her tongue. 

“:osers. Come on Jiwoo, let's go harass Haseul. Vivi’s probably there.” 

Jiwoo gasps excitedly and they make their way towards the trainers room where their two friends might be. 

* * *

  
  


Chaewon only noticed they left her two friends when she looked around and saw that they were already in front of the library. They were too engrossed into their conversation and how natural it was for them to find their way to their destination without paying much mind to it. But the sign in front of them hanging on the door didn't please them too much.

_ Library Closed for Renovations.  _

Hyejoo frowns and lets out a low grumble. She placed her hands on her hips and huffs. “Out of all times? Just when big exams are right around the corner?” 

Chaewon frowns and looks around to see if there were any vacant tables that usually were out in the hallways for students. But to her disappointment every table was pretty much occupied. They could go to the cafeteria but it was always so loud and they didn't want to risk some asshat of a student spilling their food over their work. They needed a quiet place to study but Chaewon couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.

“Do you wanna come to my house?” Hyejoo asks, breaking Chaewon out of her thoughts. 

Chaewon raises an eyebrow and feigns a scandalized gasp, putting a hand over her mouth. “Making moves already? Take me out to dinner first!”

Hyejoo looked at her confused for a second, tilting her head like a confused puppy. As Chaewon continued giving her a grin, that's when Hyejoo realized what she meant and her eyes widened when she understood what the girl was trying to say. Her face turns red and Hyejoo shoves her. Remember how she calls Chaewon her friend? Yeah. Nevermind. Chaewon is off her friends list. She doesn’t know who this woman is. Never heard of her. She would see her on the streets and she wouldn’t know a single thing. 

“Chaewon, you’re so-” Hyejoo groans into the palm of her hand eliciting a laugh from the said girl. Hyejoo wishes Chaewon was that shy and timid girl when they first met. But over time she learned that once Chaewon becomes comfortable with someone, she will be an insufferable human being. 

“Yeah we can go to your house.” Chaewon nods with a smile. 

Hyejoo returns the smile and they both head towards the entrance of the school. Only a few steps out, Hyejoo was tackled by a body that was none other than her best friend. Thankfully, Hyejoo, who’s used to this already, easily caught her in her arms and gained her balance to prevent them from falling. 

“NYEJU! WHAT IT DO BABY GIRL.” Yerim almost screams in her ear and Hyejoo winces. Chaewon brings a hand up to stifle her laugh.

“Yerim what did I say about calling me that. I’m not your ‘babygirl.’” 

“But you’re still a baby.” Yerim coos, squishing Hyejoos cheeks who grunts in protest. 

Hyejoo hears Chaewon snort and shoots her a glare to which the girl just looks away trying to hold in her laugh. 

Yerim hears Chaewons stifling laughter and looks up. If her eyes couldn't get any bigger, they did when she saw her cute blonde friend. Yerim let go of Hyejoo and immediately engulfs Chaewon in a hug who accepted it much more happily than the edgy emo kid standing a few feet away from them. 

“Chaewonnie!” 

“Yerimmie!” 

“My little gingerbread cookie, how are you hun!”

“Ugh. This is gay.” 

“Hyejoo you’re literally-”

“What about it?” 

Yerim puffs her cheeks out and sticks her tongue out at her. Hyejoo sighs and looks at her watch. 

“Shouldn’t you be at practice?” Hyejoo questions and takes in her best friend who’s clad in shorts, a white t-shirt and one of their colored practice jerseys. Her hair was tied in a ponytail and was wearing a headband to keep any loose hair from falling into her face. On her left arm was an elbow pad that she always wore while playing, considering she’s the most hustle player on their team. Always diving for the ball and taking charges just to draw a foul. It was a funny sight when Jungeun would constantly get worried on the bench since she started to deem herself as “Yerim’s mother” and fear that Yerim might get hurt. But Hyejoo knows from experience that Yerim is not as fragile as she looks. 

Yerim stops hugging Chaewon and hums. “Well yeah. But me and Jungeun took a break and went to the vending machines.” 

“Oh.” Hyejoo says flatly. She then cocks an eyebrow looking around but can’t find their other friend. “Where is she?” 

Yerim shrugged, “Good question. She just bolted off when this girl called her name and chased her. I think Jungeun got simps.” 

Hyejoo opened her mouth to say something but then closed it again. How is she supposed to respond to that? 

Yerim tilts her head. “Where are you guys going? Aren’t y'all usually in the library by now?” 

“We're going to Hyejoo’s house.” Chaewon answers. 

Yerim widened her eyes and looked between the two. Her surprise was quickly replaced by a mischievous glint in her eyes and a shit eating grin. Hyejoo knows what’s going through her mind. 

“No Yerim it’s not like that-”

“Ohohoh. Already making moves? I knew you’d grow up, baby wolf!” 

“Oh my fucking god…” 

“I know yall are studying chemistry but… I totally see the chemistry between y'all.” Yerim throws in a wink and nudges Hyejoo with her elbow. She can already hear Hyejoo growling at her as usual. 

Chaewon felt her face heat up by her words. Usually she’d join in to tease Hyejoo but Yerim was getting too embarrassed with the words she’s saying and playfully slaps the girl’s shoulder.

“Oh please. The only chemistry between us is that we’re friends.” Chaewon says with a giggle. Not realizing the effect of her words.

Hyejoo blankly stares at Chaewon. She felt something in her heart tingle for a bit but decided to ignore it. I mean, she was right anyways. They are just friends. But why does she feel sad a little bit? 

Yerim stares at her best friend. Although the girl kept a straight face she could read her eyes quite clearly. An advantage she and Hyunjin learned as they grew up with the raven haired girl. Hyejoo always hid her emotions well but only they could clearly read her like an open book. 

If you blink, you would miss it but Yerim swore she saw a flash of sadness in Hyejoo’s eyes when both of their eyes met. Yerim couldn’t help but feel guilty for making a joke like that. She decides she’ll talk to Hyejoo about this matter soon. 

Yerim throws her hands up, not pushing the teasing too far. Despite the girl always being happy and loves to joke around, she knew when it was time to stop. “Alright. Alright. I better get back to practice or else Coach is going to make me do diamond push ups. I’ll see you guys later then.” 

Hyejoo and Chaewon bid her goodbye and Yerim smiles and waves at them before jogging off. They turned and started walking towards the gates. 

“Yerim’s jokes are so absurd.” Chaewon chuckles, clearly not aware of Hyejoo’s internal conflict. 

Luckily, Hyejoo snaps out of it and shoves her hands into her back pockets and shrugs. “I literally grew up with her. Her jokes are like a disease and I'm immune to them.” 

Chaewon smirks, “Wow look at you using those words. Been paying attention to class, smart stuff? You sound like a nerd.” 

Hyejoo laughs and takes one hand out of her pocket to place it on Chaewon’s head. She ruffles her blonde hair. “Yeah I got it from you, nerd.” 

Chaewon slaps her hand away but immediately brings it back to lace their fingers together. Hyejoo looked at their hands and felt warmth course through her body. It always felt nice to hold her hand.

They made it to the gate and Chaewon was about to turn right when she felt her hand being tugged the other direction. Chaewon tilts her head confused on to why they weren’t going this direction and looks at Hyejoo who sheepishly smiled at her. 

“Uhh, so you see, last week…” Hyejoo begins and rubs at her nape. Chaewon hums in response. Hyejoo points to the opposite direction where Chaewon was going. Chaewon finally understood but then she remembers last week. 

“Wow, really, Hyejoo?” Chaewon flatly says. So last week Hyejoo lied about her house being in the same direction as her bus stop. Hyejoo could only reply with an obnoxious laugh and tugs on her hand again and began walking on the path that  _ actually _ leads to her house. 

Now that Chaewon learned that Hyejoo's house was in a different direction, she was a bit disappointed about her lying and also her having to walk longer to her house. But she couldn’t stay mad when she realized Hyejoo was just being cute and gentlemen-like. Although the thought itself was kind of endearing how the younger girl wanted to spend more time with her.

It took a couple of minutes for them to arrive at Hyejoo's house. Along the way Hyejoo saw the same little girl from the park a few days ago, looking at their interlocked hands, and gave Hyejoo a happy smile that showed her lost teeths and two thumbs up, causing the taller girl to blush and quicken her pace.

Hyejoo’s house wasn’t anything fancy. Just a simple two story house and the front yard decorated with all sorts of plants. She noticed their driveway was empty which meant everyone was still out and that she had the house all to themselves.

Hyejoo takes out her keys from her pockets that's attached to a black lanyard and fumbles with it before getting the correct key and unlocks her front door. Stepping in, Chaewon looks around in awe. The interior of the house was simple and nice. Picture frames were standing on some tables and a couple of paintings hung on the wall. The house was pretty spacious but it felt cozy. 

Hyejoo throws her bag on the couch and hears a couple of pattering on the wood floor coming from upstairs. She immediately smiles and whistles. 

The blonde tilts her head confused but hears the pattering become louder and gasps loudly when she sees a white small dog coming down the stairs and into the awaiting arms of her owner.  Hyejoo laughs and hugs the dog, giving it loving rubs over it’s back. 

“Hey boy, how are you!” Hyejoo's voice changed to one that's more high pitched and endearing than her usual voice. The dog responded by licking her face and Hyejoo giggles. 

Chaewon stood there awestruck and both hands over her mouth. She squeals in excitement and jumps in place. “Oh my gosh! He’s so cute!” 

The said dog stops its assault on her owner before padding over to the newcomer and smells her. Chaewon immediately kneels down and gives the dog a couple of head rubs to which the dog happily received, deeming the stranger worthy to pet him. 

Chaewon squeals loudly when it lays on its back, exposing its stomach to the girl. Of course Chaewon gave her some belly rubs. 

Hyejoo crosses her arms and smirks at the scene. “Wow this is unfair. He never lets me give me belly rubs.” 

“I’m just that charming.” 

“Pfft whatever.” Hyejoo walked to the kitchen and opened up a couple of cabinets. She got a couple of snacks for both her and Chaewon and treats for her precious little rat of a dog

“What’s its name?” Chaewon excitedly asks. Hyejoo comes back with the snacks and and dog treats and places it on the coffee table before kneeling down next to the two. 

“Gureum.” 

Hyejoo opens her mouth to speak but instead lets out an  _ oof _ when Gureum decides to lay its entire body weight across her lap. Chaewon squeals and rubs Gureum’s head for being so cute.

Hyejoo stretches to reach for the dog treats on the table. She tried not to move much as Gureum was still laying snug in her lap. Hyejoo hands the bag of treats to Chaewon who happily took it and opened it. 

Hearing the bag open, Gureum perks his head up and moves from Hyejoo’s lap to sit next to Chaewon obediently. Gureum’s tail wagged eagerly while waiting for a treat to which Chaewon gave one to her and gave him loving head pats. 

Hyejoo smiles but she couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit jealous that Chaewon’s attention was all on her dog. She looks at the clock and grunts to get Chaewon’s attention. Hyejoo frowned when Chaewon was still rubbing her cheeks on her dog. 

Hyejoo stood up and gently nudged Gureumwith her foot, “Alright, shows over. We came here to study and not snuggle my dog.” 

Chaewon whines, “Can we change it to that?”

“What? No! Chaewon come on!” Hyejoo took hold of Chaewons wrist and tugged her up but Chaewon was acting like a child and tried to cling onto Gureum, resisting Hyejoo. But Hyejoo was a lot stronger than her so eventually Hyejoo was sliding Chaewon across the floor.

“Get up.” Hyejoo deadpans.

Chaewon whines one last time before pushing herself off the floor. She pouts at Hyejoo, who just stuck her tongue out at her to tease her, and slings her bag over her shoulder and heads to the stairs, giving Pickles a short head pat before making her way upstairs. 

Hyejoo grabs her bag and follows the other girl, but stops to kneel down next to Gureum. She lovingly rubs her head and looks at her. 

“Stop being a charmer. It hurts my pride.” Hyejoo frowns at her dog. Gureum just licks her face and Hyejoo scrunches her face in disgust. She makes her way upstairs with Gureum trailing right behind her. 

Hyejoo sees Chaewon awkwardly standing in the hallway and looking around. She didn’t know which door was Hyejoo’s room and didn’t want to try to guess because it would be awkward if she went into the wrong room and saw something she shouldn't have. 

She’ll never forget being at Heejin’s house and going into one of the rooms only to find out it was her older brothers. The things she saw in that room reminded her why she doesn't like men. 

Hyejoo passes Chaewon, gently hitting her head making the girl yelp, and walks to the door at the far end of the hall and opens the door, nodding at the other girl. “This is my room.” 

Chaewon follows and enters her room and observes the space. It was very… Hyejoo. The walls were painted a light gray with posters of bands she never heard of and her window was covered by black curtains. A queen sized bed was pushed against the far corner of the room and Chaewon smirked when she noticed a wolf plushie sitting on top. Her desk was on the other corner and Chaewon was impressed with the gaming setup.

But what caught her eye is her shelf. It was filled with books which Chaewon knows Hyejoo barely touched with the amount of dust gathered on top. There were dvds of bands, movies and games and even… kpop albums. 

In the middle of the shelf was what made her snort. Because in the middle of it all was a small shrine of Hyuna. A picture that was taped to the back of the shelf and photo cards and albums neatly arranged around it. There were even unlit candles. 

Chaewon turned around to look at Hyejoo, who was currently sticking a foot out the door to prevent Gureum from coming inside. Hyejoo closes the door and turns around to see Chaewon smirking. She paused. 

“What?” Hyejoo asks. 

Chaewon points her chin towards her Hyuna shrine. Hyejoo stares at her shrine and visibly gulps and clears her throat. She felt her neck heat up and grabbed Chaewons shoulder, turning her around facing away from the shrine. 

“Hahah, you don’t see that.” Hyejoo awkwardly laughs. She sets her bag down on her bed and takes out her journal. “Anyways let's study. If I fail my class it’ll be your fault.” 

Chaewon rolls her eyes, “Whatever, Hyuna stan.” 

Heat rushed up to Hyejoo’s face, “Shut up!”

The smaller girl lets out a hearty laugh as Hyejoo tries to playfully shove her and throws punches. They eventually both trip over their feet and fall on the ground with a loud thud and they break out into a fit of laughter before deciding to get on with studying for today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> greetings lgbt+ community, its the third saturday of the month and just like i promised, heres the next chapter!
> 
> anyways who's this random girl bothering hyejoo? is she of importance to this story? idk who knows.   
> i decided to not name her bcuz i couldn't think of what to name her so its up to yall to decide who it is lksdfjadf  
> also hyejoo gay hyuna stan good for her, good for her. 
> 
> small simple chapter but yeah hopefully yall like it. please leave a comment on what you think! 
> 
> ALSO!! i began my lipsoul social media au on twitter so head to my twitter @httphyewonz if you want to read it!


	12. Ch. 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hyejoo and Chaewon try to study at Hyejoo's house, underline the word try, and the latter gets to meet someone special. (Hyejoo thinks otherwise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's your monthly dose of gay athlete nerds.

Hyejoo falls back dramatically on her bed with a loud frustrated scream and pulls on her hair. It’s been an hour since they started doing their homework and Chaewon guiding Hyejoo through her chemistry equations, with some occasional breaks in between. But no matter how many times Chaewon repeated herself, slower every time, she couldn’t get the information to stick. 

“Come on Hyejoo. You can do it.” Chaewon softly speaks. Hyejoo whined and rolled over to bury her face in her pillow. 

Chaewon sighs and scratches her neck. This was normal during their study session. The first 20 minutes would go fine. Hyejoo would attentively pay attention and she could solve her problems smoothly. But once it hits the 20 minute mark, her brain just malfunctions and then starts breaking down. Hyejoo then complains about how she has an attention span of a peanut because later she would start getting bored and get distracted easily. 

Luckily Chaewon gets her attention back by smacking her in the forehead. 

Chaewon glanced at the time and pushed the curtains aside to peek out the window. It was still bright outside since it’s only 4pm. She hummed and decided to continue her own homework. It wasn’t much since she does them in between classes. 

Hyejoo moved her head so her cheek was resting on the pillow and watched Chaewon focus on writing in her homework. She envied Chaewon’s ability to actually do work. Yerim as well.. But then again it makes sense. Nursing majors can’t slack off one bit even if they’re both part of extracurricular activities. 

Meanwhile Hyejoo’s in a major she didn’t know she wanted to do. Sure she loves building computers and has a little bit of knowledge of developing the parts but she's basically riding on a basketball scholarship while Yerim and Chaewon probably worked their ass off to get other sort of scholarships. 

In conclusion, college fucking sucks. 

Hyejoo let out a sigh. She didn’t wanna study anymore. She glanced at the clock before pushing herself off the bed and went into her closet and closed the door. After 5 minutes, she walked out in comfortable clothes. Just a simple blue t-shirt and sweatpants. Hyejoo walked over to one side of her room and picked up a worn out basketball and turned to look at the other girl in her room. 

Chaewon was still rooted in her spot on the bed, not showing any signs of moving besides her hand that’s writing and her head to turn and look at the textbook next to her. 

“Chaewon.” 

“Hmm.” 

“I’ll be in the backyard playing basketball.” 

“Okay.” 

Hyejoo stood there and frowned. She wanted Chaewon to come join her but she was too occupied being the nerd that she is. With a shrug, Hyejoo walked out of her room and went downstairs to her backyard. For now, Gureum will be her company. 

* * *

  
  


Hyejoo runs up and down the small court that was built in her backyard and has been shooting for about 20 minutes before she hears a door shut and Gureum runs past her to greet the newcomer. Hyejoo releases the ball into the air and watches it go through the basket with a light  _ swoosh.  _ Hyejoo smirks to herself. Nothing but net. 

“Wow, look at you, Troy Bolton.” 

Hyejoo turns around to see Chaewon walking up to her with an impressed smile. Hyejoo rolled her eyes and went to retrieve the ball. 

“Should I join a musical? I don't know. I always aspired to sing and dance across the stage while a huge prop of a moon is behind me.” Hyejoo hooks the ball under her right arm and balls her left hand into a fist, pretending to hold a microphone. With exaggerated movements, she starts to sing, “ _ We’re soaring~ Flying~.”  _

Chaewon bursted out laughing and hit Hyejoo’s shoulder at her terrible rendition of Breaking Free.“Ew! That’s gross!” Chaewon says in between a fit of giggles. 

Hyejoo grins, “What? Should I sing Humuhumunukunukuapua'a instead?” 

“Oh my god, how do you even remember how to say that.” 

“Listen, when you have a sister who invites her musician girlfriend over for movie night, you’re bound to watch all three High School Musical movies. Every. Single. Fucking. Time.” 

They both share a laugh and Hyejoo couldn’t stop herself from admiring Chaewon’s features. How whenever she laughed, her eyes would almost disappear but have one eye closed and one side of her upper line showed her gums more and her silver tooth peeking out. 

It didn’t help that the natural light of the sun made soft shapes on her face (which Hyejoo had to mentally slap herself from tracing the shapes) and how the light bounced off Chaewons blonde locks, making it look like she was almost glowing. 

Almost? Nah. She  _ is  _ glowing.

Hyejoo could feel something rise up inside her, but too scared to let it come up any farther and spill everywhere, she suppressed those feelings down. They can’t come out. never. She’s not ready for that. 

She brushed off whatever she was feeling and spoke up, “So what made you finally decide to join me, nerd?” 

Chaewon scoffs at the overused name that the taller girl grew to like. She shrugged and put her hands behind her back, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. Hyejoo had to hold in from smiling even wider with how cute she looked. “I got bored because you weren’t with me.” 

Hyejoo smiled, the grip on the ball between her two hands became tighter. Something about what Chaewon said sparked something inside. How it could mean one thing but Hyejoo knows better than to get her hopes up like that. Wishful thinking causes trouble. 

“Do you know how to play?” Hyejoo asks while dribbling the ball between her legs. She tosses the ball over to Chaewon who catches it unexpectedly. Hyejoo had to hold in a snicker. 

“Not really. My older brother tried to teach me when I was younger but I would always accidentally chuck the ball over the fence.” Chaewon sheepishly smiles. 

Hyejoo steps back to watch Chaewon throw the ball in the air towards the basket. Her form was already screaming disastrous because the moment she threw it, a little too hard with no arc, it hit the front of the rim and bounced right back straight towards Hyejoo’s direction. Thankfully this time she blocked her face in time. 

“Oh shoot! Sorry!” Chaewon ran over to Hyejoo and held her arm. 

“Holy shit! Why is it always my face!” Hyejoo pouts.

“It was only two times!” Chaewon laughs and wraps her arms around the other girl in a comforting hug. 

Hyejoo half heartedly tried to pry away from Chaewon’s grip but she kept holding on so she bent forward and lifted Chaewon off the ground, causing the other girl to squeal in surprise. Setting her two feet on the ground, Chaewon finally let go of Hyejoo.

Hyejoo walks over to the ball on the grass and points a thumb at her chest. “Let the pro teach you the  _ proper _ way to shoot a basketball.  _ Without killing someone _ .” 

The next 10 minutes consisted of Hyejoo telling Chaewon the basics of shooting the ball. Chaewon listened intently but the moment Hyejoo hands her the ball, all the information she gathered just went over her head and did whatever except the tips the basketball player told her. 

Hyejoo pinched the bridge of her nose as Chaewon missed another shot as the ball hit the right side of the rim and bounced off with the blonde chasing after it. She still hasn’t made a bucket. It was like she was talking to a brick wall. 

She opens her eyes and sees Chaewon preparing for another shot and immediately jumps into action. 

“Hey hey hey, you’re still doing it wrong.” Hyejoo feels her patiences leave her body when Chaewon repeatedly holds the ball like she was about to chuck it over her fence. It’s a miracle Hyejoo hasn’t snapped yet because if it was someone else, she would already be red in the face from anger. 

But this is Chaewon. And Hyejoo wouldn’t yell at her when Chaewon looks so determined, her tongue peeking out between the corner of her lips, to at least make one shot. 

“I can make it! Just hold on!” 

“Chaewon you literally suck!” 

“Why don’t you try volleyball then? I’d like to see you try to dive for a ball and keep it in the air!” Chaewon argues back. 

Hyejoo groans and frowns. Okay she has a point. But Hyejoo isn’t that interested in learning volleyball. Chaewon on the other hand is so set on making a bucket for the first time, but she should at least  _ listen _ to her. 

“Here-” 

Before Hyejoo could process what she was doing, she was already standing behind Chaewon and placing her hands over her small ones. 

Heat rose up Chaewon’s system as Hyejoo’s close proximity made her tense but let's Hyejoo move her hands into the right position. It’s almost like Hyejoo was back hugging her. She can barely even understand what Hyejoo is telling her despite her talking right next to her ear. 

“-then you just let the ball roll off your forefinger and give it a backspin and follow through. Got it?” 

“Huh?” 

Hyejoo rolls her eyes and grabs Chaewon’s head, messing up her hair. All that explaining and she wasn’t even listening! This brat.

Chaewon shoves her away and sticks out her tongue before getting into position. Hyejoo watches with arms crossed, criticism about her form already at the tip of the tongue but remains silent to let the other girl do whatever. Her footing was a little bit awkward but it’s whatever. 

Hyejoo quirks one eyebrow and one corner of her mouth twitches up into a smile at the sight of Chaewon’s tongue peeking out from her lips and watches her movement. The other girl jumps up, lets the ball roll off her fingers and ejects it into the air. 

“Assa!” Chaewon brings her hands into the air and jumps excitedly. 

Hyejoo’s eyebrows rose up in surprise with how perfectly angled the shot was. The ball went straight down through the hoop without touching the rim. Nothing but net. The satisfying sound of the net swishing in the air was something Hyejoo was used to. But Chaewon learned pretty quickly. 

With a smile Hyejoo raised a hand, gesturing for a high five but instead was caught off guard when Chaewon practically jumped onto her, wrapping her arms around Hyejoo’s neck. Hyejoo stumbled for a bit before regaining her balance and let out a light chuckle to see Chaewon smiling brightly up at her. The other girl was too ecstatic with making a shot. She didn’t realize what kind of situation she put them in, but she didn’t pay much mind to it when Hyejoo just ruffled her hair and messed it up once again. Eventually this led them to another round of bickering and chasing each other around.

The rest of the day was spent with both of them sweating and running around the court. Their textbooks and homework were left forgotten in the confinements of Hyejoo’s room as the two athletes were too busy happily laughing outside. By the time they came back inside, both of them had a light gleam to their skin from all the sweat, and were laying on the living room floor catching their breaths from all the exertion, laughing at a rerun of an Adventure Time episode on the tv. 

Both can agree that they would rather prefer spending time together like this instead of stuffing their faces in school work. 

Sadly, good things have to end and eventually they end up back in Hyejoo’s room doing exactly that. Chaewon was seated at Hyejoo’s desk, writing down her own set of notes from the textbook while Hyejoo was hovering over her and glancing back at her own notes. They exchanged a couple of few words here and there but most of the time was spent in silence with faint music playing through the speakers in the background. Though the silence was broken abruptly when the door swung open and a woman let out some kind of warrior scream, scaring the daylights out of the current occupants in the room. 

“JESUS!” Hyejoo says out loud, placing a hand over her chest. 

“Close, but no, it’s just me.” The woman steps into the room and places both her hands on the side of her hips and stands proudly. Hyejoo scowls and facepalms. 

Chaewon, who is now recovering from her shock, takes in who this person could be. The woman was dressed in adidas sweatpants, a white crop top that shows her very defined abs, a jacket and a duffle bag hanging off her shoulder. Something catches Chae won’s eyes as she sees a very familiar logo sewn on the left side of the jacket. Squinting her eyes, her eyes trail up to the woman's face. Focusing on her features, sharp eyes, a slightly pointed nose, it all comes crashing down when she glances at Hyejoo and things start to click together.

“SON MINJOO?” Chaewon let out a deep gasp, putting both her hands over her mouth. 

The older woman finally takes notice of the unfamiliar girl and raises an eyebrow, “Oh? Hello,” She smiles and waves. She turns to Hyejoo. “Hyejoo I didn’t know you have friends outside of your gay circle of friends.” She pokes the girl's cheek to which she quickly retracts her hand back when the younger girl made an attempt to bite it. 

Hyejoo looks at Chaewon who still has that star-strucked look on her face. “Um, yeah… Wait how do you know her name?” 

“She’s a volleyball player!” 

Hyejoo blinks. “... Yeah I know” 

“From Sungyang University!”

“Oh yeah, the university a few blocks from ours.” 

“She’s very popular!” 

“Eh? Really? Are you sure about that- Ouch! Minjoo!” 

“I’m a fan of her!” 

“Oh cool- wait what.” Hyejoo widens her eyes and looks at her sister who just shrugs her shoulder, confused by the situation as well. 

Minjoo coughs into her fist and flashes the blonde a smile. It’s not everyday you come across someone who idolizes you. Sure she admits that she’s getting popular from recent volleyball tournaments but hey, at least she’s getting recognition.

“Thank you. And I heard you’re that one spiker who knocked the daylights out of Hyejoo, yeah? For a girl your size, I’m very impressed.” 

Hyejoo lets out a groan before plopping on her bed and screams into her pillow, voice muffled. “When will people drop that!” Minjoo laughs before coming up to ruffle her younger sister's head. 

“Anyways, I’ve heard a lot about you, Park Chaewon-” “You know my name!” “-It’s nice to finally meet the star of Dalso Uni’s volleyball team.” She brings out her hand in between them and Chaewon shakes her hand shyly, a timid smile on her face. Hyejoo watches the entire exchange with a bored expression, not sure if she should be pleased with her sister getting along with the blonde. 

Sensing eyes glaring holes in the back of her head, Minjoo glances at Hyejoo to see that she was indeed, in fact, glaring right at her. Rolling her eyes and sticking out her tongue she moves towards the door. “Alright, well I’ll let you nerds continue doing your study session. I’ll be making dinner. Chaewon you should join us.” 

Chaewon blinks and hesitancy begins to fill her mind , “I don’t know…” She didn’t wanna prolong her stay since she only came here to help Hyejoo and study for a bit. She should go home soon but with how Hyejoo is looking at her pleadingly with that same puppy eyes she gives to convince Chaewon to give her a break in the libraries, she begins to reconsider. 

“Don’t worry, I can drive you home and Hyejoo can tag along. I’ll call you guys down when it’s done.” The older Son smiles before she leaves the room and the door clicks shut. 

Silence fell into the room and a few beats passed before Chaewon abruptly stood up, the chair rolling back quite a bit, and pointed a finger straight at the girl lying on the bed. “You!” 

Hyejoo tilts her head. Before she even has time to react, a blur of blonde and a body lunges at her and now she’s receiving multiple jabs to her sides. 

“Why didn’t you tell me your sister is a volleyball player! Especially THE Son Minjoo!” 

Hyejoo’s attempts of stopping Chaewon’s assault was futile as her attacks were quick, and her hands kept getting slapped away whenever they tried to grab a hold of hers. At some point her jabs turned into tickles and Hyejoo couldn’t bite back the giggles that escaped from her mouth. 

“Y-you.. HAH- you never asked! HAHAH. STOP!” Hyejoo managed to let out in between laughs. Eventually she overpowers the blonde and begins to tickle her in retaliation, causing the smaller girl to squeal. 

From downstairs Minjoo can hear all the laughing, considering her sister is very loud and obnoxious with her cackling, and rolls her eyes. These damn kids. At some point she hears a loud thud and a muffled “oh my god Hyejoo are you okay?!” Looking up the stairs with a worried look, she let out a sigh and went back to cooking. They should be fine. Hopefully. 

Although Minjoo wouldn’t admit this outloud, she’s very ecstatic to see and hear Hyejoo enjoying herself and being surrounded by people who bring this version out from her. 

Especially the fellow volleyball player. 

A part of her doesn’t want to jump to conclusions yet, but if Hyejoo brings a friend over to their house, that was a pretty good sign that this person is trustworthy. If she recalls, digging up memories from the past, she only ever saw the same chaotic gang who would be rowdy in the backyard for a 3 versus 2 game. She’s seen Hyunjin and Yerim plenty of times back in their childhood days but those were the only two Hyejoo would invite over before Jungeun and Sooyoung came into the picture. Minjoo was worried that Hyejoo was having a hard time making friends. 

At least it’s pleasant to see a new face. Even before actually getting to meet her, she already knew about her existence when she interrogated Hyejoo one day about her ‘change of demeanor towards academics’ when she finds her actually studying instead of yelling through her headset. And ever since whenever Hyejoo would talk about her day when they have dinner (occasionally, sometimes their schedules overlap), it would always be Chaewon this, Chaewon that. 

And she would talk about her with a small smile and her eyes sparkling like how it always does when she enthusiastically talks about the basketball game the other night or so. 

Just like right now. Minjoos words turn to be true when she sits across the two during dinner. While Chaewon was currently going off on some tangent over a game Hyejoo brought up, Minjoo notices Hyejoo never once left her eyes from Chaewon, a smile even forming on her face while she munches on the bulgogi she cooked. 

And if that was anything to go off by, imagine the surprise Minjoo feels when Hyejoo willingly let Chaewon take some of her side dishes, especially her share of kimchi. Everyone who knows Hyejoo are aware of the unspoken rule of “Do Not Take Son Hyejoo’s Kimchi” 

But here we got little miss blondey just taking her kimchi like it’s free real estate. 

_ Hmm…  _ Minjoo thinks, but keeps it in the back of her mind when currently there’s other things to focus on. Like how Hyejoo just flicked a potato into her face, resulting in the two to start bickering. 

Dinner was quite delicious and enjoyable, Chaewon admits. Although having dinner with someone you highly look up to wasn’t something she ever expected, Minjoo was just like Hyejoo although slightly more mature, she easily felt comfortable. 

By the time they finished cleaning up and doing the dishes, Chaewon offered to help Hyejoo, did they realize how the sky turned dark already.

“Ah! I should head home soon!” Chaewon exclaims, realizing the time when she glances at the clock on the wall. 

Minjoo grabs her keys from the counter and points a thumb over her shoulder. “I’ll go ahead and start up the car, you go ahead and get your stuff.” Chaewon nods her head and runs up the stairs. Putting on her shoes, Minjoo was expecting Hyejoo to come wait in the car with her but watches as the girl follows after the blonde. Eh. Whatever. 

Once the two girls come out of the house, with Hyejoo locking the door, they make their way into the car. Chaewon climbs into the back of the car with Hyejoo following right after. Minjoo raises a questioning eyebrow. Usually the younger would sit in the passenger seat and fight to take over the aux, but this time to decide to sit in the back. 

Shrugging, she connects her phone and plays one of her chill playlist after Hyejoo warns her to not play any bad songs, and backs out of the driveway once Chaewon enters her address into her phone. 

The drive was mostly quiet besides the whispering conversations behind her and a video playing of a basketball game Hyejoo pulled up on her phone. The two were seated very close, almost close enough to where their heads were _ almost _ leaning against each other while the younger girl would explain the mechanics of the game. 

Eventually they ended up falling asleep 15 minutes into the car ride. Their energy burned out after their little basketball game in the backyard from earlier. 

Peeking up to the rear mirror, a smile spreads across Minjoo’s face. A sight she’s quite familiar with whenever she would drive her sister, Hyunjin, and Yerim. But something about this sight was quite endearing. 

Maybe it’s the way Hyejoo is the one now laying her head on someone’s shoulder. Usually she would sit in the middle and let the two childhood friends sleep on her shoulder, never once leaning on them. Hell, she never slept on her shoulder when they would go on family trips, opting to just lean her head against the window or the headrest. 

Minjoo feels reassured that at least Hyejoo has someone to lean on. 

Hyejoo eventually wakes up 10 minutes before they arrive at Chaewon’s house and shoots her older sister with a glare that said “Don’t talk about it” when she sees her grinning from ear to ear in the rear mirror. Minjoo raises both hands at a stop light to show she was going to remain quiet. 

By the time they reach Chaewon’s house, Hyejoo shakes her awake and helps gather her things, even coming out of the car with her. Hyejoo stands just by the car and watches her get her keys, waving at her once she opens the door and gets in. 

Hyejoo comes back into the car but this time in the passenger seat and buckles in. She looks up when she realizes her sister was being silent and turns her head to see her giving the same shit-eating grin. 

“What?” 

“Mmm… nothing.” Minjoo puts the car in reverse and begins to back up. 

Hyejoo clicks her tongue and takes out her phone, “Weirdo.” 

  
  


“Hey Hyejoo.” Minjoo closes the car door, pressing the lock button at least 3 times, before she goes up to the front door of their house and unlocks it.

Hyejoo hums, still typing on her phone. The older girl caught a glimpse of Chaewon’s contact name.

_ They literally just saw each other…  _

“What is Chaewon to you?”

Hyejoo looks up from her phone and tilts her head confused. “Hm? What do you mean?” 

Minjoo smiles and shakes her head, waving a hand to dismiss her. “Ah, nevermind.” 

Hyejoo narrows her eyes before she shrugs and runs up the stairs to her room. Minjoo watches her sister’s retreating figure with a fond smile and sighs. How the Hyejoo presented right in front of her was a drastic difference to when her sister was just in middle school. If you told her 11 year old Hyejoo would be smiling as big as she was when they were in the car 8 years later, Minjoo wouldn’t believe you. 

_ Oh, young love. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psst did yall know i started a [lipsoul au?](https://twitter.com/httphyewonz/status/1338075665447460864?s=20)
> 
> thank you for being patient. please leave me a comment :]  
> send me a curiouscat if you'd like: https://curiouscat.me/sojungslines


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